Tick Tock
by natural-blues
Summary: Rose Tyler is trapped in Pete's world, struggling with depression and heartbreak. When a new director takes over Torchwood, making a law that anyone who is found to have even befriended an alien must undergo 'correction', she must escape not only the asylum but also the universe to return to her Doctor. The Big Bad Wolf is going home... (Doctor/Rose) (M for asylum, smut way later)
1. Topography of the Parallel Universe

**_Tick Tock_ by Natural-blues**

**This story is rated M due to its content, not only due to the smut content that will be in later chapters, but due also to the fact that it features blood, battles, psychological disorders, character death, self harm, suicidal thoughts, description of certain psychological treatments that are less than legal or kind, hallucinations, and a definite cascade between what is real vs. what might not be. This story does contain angst, but it is also a romance story, and it holds some inspiration from Sucker Punch! and Girl, Interrupted. Any lines taken from those belong purely to their owners just as Doctor Who belongs to the BBC. Bad Wolf features in this, although not quite the way she usually does, and this is most definitely a Doomsday fix-it.**

**Each part will be long. This is a hints of Ten/Rose but the couple is Eleven/Rose. River will also feature in this fic, but not in the way she normally does. Don't worry, River fans, there won't be bashing. There will be fixing.**

**I hope you like it, please review and let me know.**

**This story is dedicated to my bb skittttlezz who believed in me, hugged me, squealed with me, put up with 1 am banter, and harped on me until it was done. Oh and snuck up on me while I was listening to my iPod twice! ... hvdu.**

**The next chapter and a good chunk of this one are also dedicated to the lovely Bubblygal92, whose stories are an inspiration for Classic Whovians everywhere.**

* * *

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

That sound was her only comfort, the only thing in existence that made perfect, clear sense to Rose Marion Tyler. At least anymore. Which was funny in and of itself, because time made no justifiable sense. It was _wibbly wobbly._ It was at times linear, non-linear, sometimes it flowed as a river, and sometimes it all occurred at once, like the water in a lake. As such, it could go stagnant…. Sometimes the winds of change could occur… sometimes each thing had its place. There were good paradoxes, such as circular ones; bad ones, they brought the Reapers… time. It was the only thing that gave her comfort, this watch. It was one of the few things she'd been allowed to keep in this room. She'd had to prove herself in order to keep them, and she was convinced that one of the reasons she was even allowed them in the first place was because they were leverage. The employees here were very big on giving their _guests_ just enough possessions that they had something to need, something they would break without having. All she had was her necklace with the TARDIS key on it, her pocket watch with a picture of herself and the Doctor at Christmastime taped messily on the inside, a torn up children's book, and of course, Mopsy. How did it come to this? She stared down at the ground, hearing the voices down the hall, the steps on the tile floors coming closer. She looked at her pocket watch, the time.

12:15. The Doctor's handsome face loomed on the other side of that watch. Smiling so hugely, at her. God, look at her smiling at him…. She'd been so happy. She'd been so beautiful… how did she look now? Oh wait, what was she thinking about? Oh right. 12:16 and 23 seconds…. Why would they come…?

Of course. Feeding time. A well-fed crazy was a slow crazy. The slower they were, the easier to take them down. Rose had stopped eating full meals a long time ago, often refusing food altogether. She would only eat enough to stay alive, enough to keep from losing too much weight (then they got to put you on a feeding tube, and she'd rather _rot _than give them any leeway to have her covered with wires and filled with tubes) but to give her a bit of energy. She could never be fully certain if her food had been poisoned, so small doses of her food worked to quell her mind. A weak poison would only disturb her system a bit if she ate small amounts, and any poison strong enough to kill in tiny doses would be fast, with luck. A rustle next to her alerted her to the presence of another, whose voice whispered, "They're coming. Please eat this time. Please. Just a little bit." She scowled. The orderly opened the flap on the bottom of the door, slid in a tray with cold tea and buttered toast on it, closing and locking the flap. "Better eat that this time, Tyler, you agreed, one meal a day. Or you don't earn your gold star."

….God, what was she, fucking _five_? She had a chart outside of her… bedroom… of a calendar. If she ate once per day, she earned a gold star sticker. Any days without the sticker were considered 'difficult days', during which Mopsy whinged at her, the orderlies glowered over being forced to fetch a plate that was unused, and Doris, the head nurse, would be cross with her. Doris was an Irish woman, who was short, trim, and had some of the brightest red hair Rose had ever seen in real life. Her hair was always up in a tight bun, a no-nonsense bun to go along with her ever so riveting personality. She wore the traditional nurse's dress and cap, her white tights and shoes always smudged from something to do with a patient. Oh, excuse her, a _guest_. That had been what the Director had written on the paperwork in order to excuse the wrongful commitment of every known alien in the UK.

Her paperwork. Jesus Christ. She'd seen it. It would have sent the Oncoming Storm into an Oncoming Babble to end all babbles. Well, she'd seen _some of it_, she was certain there was more.

_Legal status at admission: Voluntary. _That was a laugh. But it was her diagnosis that really had gotten her to start thinking. _Established Diagnosis, Mental Disorder: Borderline Personality._ She'd frowned upon reading that, at the time. She hadn't known precisely what it'd meant, and it looked so out of place with all of the other information, bland information that dumbed her down to her most basic information. It may as well have been a death certificate – _Education: High School Graduate, Sex: Female, Marital Status: Single, _everything that made up her little world, even down to her mother's maiden name and the address of her physician's office. It was all there. She remembered those words glaring out at her, and she'd picked up a medical dictionary in the TV room – one of the few books on those mostly barren shelves. She'd have to complain about the environment she was a 'guest' in. The reading material had left much to be desired.

She'd found what she was looking for. The words had jumped out of the paper at her, scary words. True words. Words like 'repeated acts of destructive behaviour', 'unstable', 'anger', 'extreme behaviour', 'hallucinations', and 'episodes of depersonalization'. This lot was good, she had to admit, albeit begrudgingly. They were professionals, very good at making people disappear when need be. Even using the truth to do it.

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

Mopsy shifted uncomfortably next to her, looking meaningfully at her food tray and then at her, obviously ready to launch into another of his attempts to convince her to eat. She frowned at him, she could always see him, even when she wasn't looking at him. He was her imaginary friend, did she even remember when she first started seeing him? She did, didn't she? Of course. When she first began to work for Torchwood. She hadn't done it on purpose, but everything had become too much, she couldn't handle the depression any longer, and she'd needed him. He was the Doctor but he wasn't, just enough different that she wouldn't have to see that spikey brown hair and those whiskey colored eyes staring at her with accusation, disappointment, or pity. Oh God, she wouldn't be able to handle that, how much she probably disappointed the Doctor. No, Mopsy's emerald eyes and floppy hair were different enough that it didn't sting the same way. His Manchester accent made the words not sound enough like the Doctor's, even if his babbling, odd mannerisms were so Doctor... he was perfectly imperfect. He was in a suit of course, but where the Doctor had looked as eccentric as he _was_, in brown pinstripes and a pair of Chucks, Mopsy wore tweed and honestly looked more like a raggedy Maths professor than anything else.

He was comfortably uncomfortable for her. She needed him, and that was why he'd started appearing one day. It'd taken her _too long_ to notice that the man that had been consistently speaking to her and 'running into her randomly', the one she'd gotten a friendship with, the one she'd finally begun being happy with, been laughing with, speaking to, asking for paperwork at work, eating lunch with – no one else could see. This man for whom she'd begun to be happy, begun to put her feelings into, the one she'd trusted and finally found a way out of darkness because of...

The coincidences, once they'd clicked into place, had caused a breakdown, and total regression.

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

"If you don't eat something, it'll be another bad day again. Really bad, really very very very not good. Doris will glare at you like she does, smoosh her face up in that way you insist makes her appear like an angry weasel, and demand of you all sorts of silly, rhetorical questions, such as 'Are we going to have trouble here?' and 'Do I need to give you something to help you relax?' and you know it'll be Thorazine again. You don't like the taste of it, it drops to your stomach and then your body feels dropped as well, and your life feels dropped enough, Tyler. Please. Please eat."

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. _

Oh yeah. The Thorazine. Oh yeah, the star chart. Oh yeah, Doris.

"She'll call your TARDIS key a 'sharp' again, and take it away!" he sounded offended by the mere notion of something as complex and important as a TARDIS key could be reduced to its texture and considered a weapon for self-mutilation.

_Tick….tock…._

Fuck these people.

* * *

_Tick….tick….tick…._

The small crystal clock on Pete Tyler's desk was so distracting to her. She was supposed to be paying attention to what her parallel father was telling her, but she was far too distracted by wondering why there was no distinctive 'tock' noise coming from that clock. For some reason, it bothered her when time telling devices did not make the noises. She was wearing a wristwatch, she had a pocket watch in her pocket, and was wearing a watch ring, one of the stretchy ones from the mall. She needed them, they made the noises, and they told time. Clocks ran her life, now. They made her think of that Time Lord in a way that was non-threatening, in a way she could remain calm. The ticking and tocking gave her a calm feeling reminiscent of the TARDIS' humming. She glanced up when she heard Pete pause, thoughtfully. _God, was he still talking? _Just give her the job already, she knew it wasn't even in question. Her mother had been harping on her, and Mickey too, that if she'd just find busy work she'd be able to adjust better. Maybe she would take her loss easier, and move on. But Rose knew better. She would never move on, and somewhere in them, they knew it too. She tuned out every one of their longwinded speeches about how she just needed to move on, new universe, new chances. All she heard was how irritated they must have been, or even frustrated, that she was the one not going with the program.

"Now Rose, not that I'm doing this out of nepotism, although I will undoubtedly be accused of such by those who are unbearably jealous of you," there was a twinkle in his eye, a fatherly twinkle that he reserved just for her. A parental tease laced in his words, he had never really been able to tease since becoming a bigshot. Jackie and him had had a tumultuous marriage, and by the end, nothing he did could please her, nothing was enough for her. She hadn't appreciated him, she'd appreciated funds. But still, he'd been in love with her since high school. Since ever. He'd always wanted children, but his Jackie had complained about waistlines and never considered having children. He'd loved her, and believed it was her body, so it should be her choice whether or not she got pregnant. But he'd even suggested adoption, or surrogacy. She wouldn't hear of any children. He'd loved her, and losing her had been so much pain. But gaining her parallel self had been incredible.

Jackie's parallel self had been everything he'd ever hoped his Jackie could be. She'd had to raise Rose without him, something he regretted, even though it wasn't he who had died. She appreciated all of his hard work because she had painfully learned the value of work. She appreciated having him, because she had lost him. Jackie was still quick to anger, defensive, and impulsive. She still couldn't cook worth a damn. She still had her controlling ways, but it was the endearing ways... she was a better, more mature version of the girl he'd fallen in love with in high school and married. She was also the most loving woman to him, she showered him with affection, his life felt like a beautiful romance story of its own.

His life had changed so much. Now he had a fully grown daughter that amazed him, even though she was in such great pain. He could understand, losing Jackie had devastated him. Losing him had devastated Rose's biological mother, Jackie. If he'd simply been separated from her, by universe…. God, he'd be in a similarly depressive state. He understood Rose in a way that he worried the others didn't. He waited, just trying to show her that when she was ready to talk, he would listen. He would be a non-judgmental, sympathetic, fatherly ear. He couldn't wait for his son's birth, either. He wasn't certain how to be a father but Jacks would help him, and Rose…. Rose would help him too. He reached over the table and touched her hand, on the back. She hated anyone holding her hand, too many memories. She glanced up at him, tilting her head to the side. Zoned out again.

"…But…?"

"But, I want you to work for Torchwood. I need you in Ops, Rose. Your prior experience makes you invaluable." He always worded himself carefully to not mention him. He didn't even use the word 'Doctor', he used 'physician' if only to keep her content. He'd do anything to help her.

"I accept," she murmured, glancing at his clock again. He'd been wondering what to get her as a present for her new desk at Torchwood. Perhaps the answer had been glaring him in the face. He'd buy her a desk clock. She'd love that, she seemed obsessed with telling time anymore.

"Thank you, luv. You're really doing your old man a favour here, getting me out of this tight spot. If you go to the front desk, Gertrude will give you all the paperwork to sign, and we'll discuss schedules and necessities over dinner, mm?"

She smiled at him, and he felt genuinely good. He was helping her, he was earning his fatherhood. She hugged him tightly, and even kissed his cheek! Did she just call him 'dad'?! She had! His entire heart warmed in his chest, and he waved lightly as she left. He'd have to tell Jacks.

The ticking was gone, and Rose felt a momentary loss as she left the office. She felt like she was in freefall again, and didn't know how to hold her mourning at bay without those sounds. Oh God. Don't think of the word, don't think of the word, don't… Doctor. Darkness permeated her feelings at that word… she tried so hard to keep the depression away. She needed him, he was the love of her life, he was The One…. She didn't know how to function on the slow path anymore, she had seen too much. She didn't want this, this feeling that her entire life had fallen apart. She had no one to talk to, everyone just wanted her to smile and be okay with it. She stepped over to the main secretary's desk with her wrist by her ear, probably looking like a loon. The ticking and tocking of her wrist watch made it worth looking like anything, though; it was her security blanket. She glanced at the secretary who smiled, and set down a large pile of paperwork, to be signed in triplicate. Rose sighed, but smiled a bit; or at least tried to. She mostly just felt tired, and her heart hurt. It was so sore, she was convinced there would be no mending it, she just had to learn to put on a brave face... She wanted it so bad. She wanted a friend, someone to understand, someone perfect.

A strange man came into her line of vision, making her glance up. He was right behind the secretary's desk, walking toward her from the lifts. A bit strange looking, probably one of her father's scientists… wearing a tweed jacket, a button down, a ridiculous bow tie, and boots, why boots…? His trousers were too short, and she really wondered why he would dress so odd… Oh right, scientist, him. Geniuses didn't need to dress posh, they made up for whatever they wore with their minds. She must have been staring, because he was looking right at her, and smiled, a slow smile that took over his face. Oh Lord, she got a guilty look on her face, and knew she looked so very _caught_, even though she shouldn't feel such. It wasn't like she was attracted to him, was it…? Oh God, she did find him attractive! She felt the hot burning shame and tried to play it down to a blush, looking back at her paperwork.

Apparently, he didn't comprehend that she was trying not to become involved, because he somehow was standing right next to her, smiling. She glanced at Gertrude while she was doing her paperwork, but the woman didn't even glance up, just kept staring at her computer screen and typing.

"That's quite the daunting pile of paperwork. You'd think it'd all be electronic by now, what with the resources disappearing on this planet and the need to recycle and replant trees and the like. Honestly, paper is quite a renewable resource but human beings are absolutely awful at making certain to use things on a responsible level, if only they had thought to renew back when the science first started to occur…." _This one has quite the gob on him, Jesus._ He had a Manchester accent to him, which for some reason completed the weird professor getup. He seemed to take note of her reaction, and changed tactic. "I take it you're brand new? I'm John, John Smith."

"I'm Rose Tyler."

Gertrude glanced up, raising an eyebrow in an 'I know' sort of fashion, but Rose was looking at the paperwork, signing her life away. She didn't read it any more than she did her iTunes update contract. "Gertrude Johansson." She murmured, and Rose looked up, smiling at her as well. John was looking at Gertrude with a smile as well.

"She's a nice secretary, Gertrude is." He said, smiling softly.

"Pleased to meet you, Gertrude." She murmured, politely.

The woman was smiling, and Rose thought, _Well, he can't be that bad, ol' Gertrude seems to like him, and from what I've seen of her for the past three months, Dad didn't hire her for her computation skills. She's shrewd. _She felt sorry that she hadn't met her before now, but. She took the paperwork over to a table in the middle of the room to let Gertrude get her work done better. Rose knew she hated it when people leaned over her while she was working, somewhat like that man, John, had been and…. Jesus Christ, was doing right now. She continued signing the paperwork with near reckless abandon. She'd done it carefully the first fifteen pages, but the man was making her flustered as he just watched her, as if waiting for her to prompt him. Geniuses were so strange, it was a good thing she had years of experience with one of the biggest geniuses in the Multiverse to…. There it was. That sharp pain again, slicing into her heart. Her face fell, and all of that strength she tried to get a hold of dissipated. Suddenly, he spoke again.

"Rose… Tyler, was it…? You wouldn't happen to be related to Director Tyler, would you?"

"Yes," she replied, her frustration with the paperwork becoming more obvious. She was on page 32 now, this was past ridiculous. Just how much life did she have left to sign away?! "I'm his daughter. ….What abou' you, Mr. Smith? What do _you_ do?" She raised an eyebrow at him, trying not to hint too hard that he was up in her business and she just wasn't certain what to do. It was almost a comfort to have him hovering over her. Just like—oh no….. Instantly he spoke again, distracting her.

"Physics. Astronomy. I'm afraid I do a bit of everything, to be honest. I'm very clever." She smiled, and nodded slowly. Finally, she was done. Finally. That answer though, it reminded her of… and the instant the thought hit, before the pain could come full circle, he spoke again. Distracting her.

"Would it be inappropriate of me to ask the Director's daughter if she'd like a cuppa? I don't know if you've seen the cafeteria here, but if you'd like, I can show you about. Not easy, being new," he said by means of explanation. Worried she'd say no. Oh my, he was so helpful. Rose already knew where everything in this building was, but for some reason she wanted to see it with him. For some reason, she trusted him instantly, craved some form of social connection with another outside of her family, someone who wouldn't know her story. Someone who wouldn't give her a constant, pitying stare. She could hear the ticking of her clocks, and wondered if he did too. If it bothered him, he didn't show it. She glanced at one of the wall clocks. 2:42 and 19 seconds. She could do this. She smiled, and nodded the affirmative, handing the completed paperwork to Gertrude, and asking her to tell her father that she was going to be shown around by a friend, and not to worry. She'd completely missed the raised eyebrow from the secretary, who had wondered if Rose had been speaking on a Bluetooth, but didn't see one.

* * *

_Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock._

Her mother had been looking at her with horror that morning, before she'd left for work. She wanted her own flat, but they refused to provide the funds. She would use her Torchwood wages for a flat, she'd decided. They had a long row, one that Rose felt had been coming for the past seven months of her being trapped in this awful 'Parallel Hell' as she called it. Her mum was picking at her again and again, over how Rose should be dating, and Rose was working too much, and Rose could feel that pressure beginning to build further. Inside, she was screaming - had been internally screaming for months. Her hands twitched, with the urge to cover her ears. Her legs twitched, she wanted to run. She did neither.

"I'm just saying, get over that stupid alien git already and find a good _Earthling_ to be with! It'll get you the hell out of the house! Find a _friend_, for God's sake! Spend some time with _other people."_

She couldn't believe her ears. Her mother could be so thick, she was just railing at her as though what she felt meant nothing. "So bloody _sorry_ my heartbreak is so inconvenient for you, Mum." she finally grit out, her tears brimming in her eyes nearly blinding her.

"Excuse me, what was that?" the light tone of her mother's voice was only used when it was a dangerous tone. She was angry. Good. Rose was tired of being the only one around here who was angry and hurt.

"I _said_, I'm sorry that my heartbreak, _mine_, not _yours_, is so bloody inconvenient for you mum! For you, for Mickey, for all of the lot of ya!" Her voice raised somewhere near the middle, and toward the end, while not shouting, she was beginning to sound a bit shrill. Her father stepped out of the dining room at that, looking between the two women.

Jackie's laugh was mirthless, and she shook her head. "Inconvenient?! Is that what you think? You're my _daughter_, Rose. My little girl! You think it doesn't hurt to see you in pain?! But you need to get over that ruddy alien and enjoy your family! I'm just trying to help you move on!"

Rose knew her mum wasn't intending to be harmful. She knew it. But, her mum's words were also too little too late, damage had already been done by her mother's attempts to 'fix' what happened. Rose was too far gone from months of holding it in. She wanted to scream, but the only thing she could get out was a biting comment. "So why don't you just keep on about how Brady Bunch bloody happy we are, eh? I just love being spoken for, I ever tell ya?" she grabbed her car keys, angrily, and got out of the house, ignoring her mother yelling at her to get back there.

"Rose Tyler don't you walk away from me, I am _your mother_!" The bane of her existence from childhood on was hearing that phrase. That phrase was meant to cause instant submission. It used to work. Instead it just riled Rose up more. She ignored her, revved the engine just for spite, and turned away from her mum to peel out of the driveway, blasting some heavy punk screaming music that she just didn't normally listen to. She needed the music more and more of late, the screaming echoed her angry feelings.

She didn't have to be to work for another two hours but she just needed the drive. No destination, just a good, angry, shouting with the song lyrics sort of drive. It was cathartic. It was beautiful. It was something that made her feel better. She cranked up the next song, Katy Perry's 'Hot n Cold' but Katy Perry didn't exist in this universe. This song was sung by a band called 'Woe is Me'. She felt the thrum in her veins from speeding while ...singing, she supposed it was singing she was doing. Once she hit a red light, her mobile chimed. A text from her mum.

_If you don't want to talk to me, fine. But I think you should see a psychiatrist. Your dad said you lot have one at Torchwood so no one would ever know. _

She didn't know what to think about that, but she did know that her mum's suggestion to see a therapist was out of the damn question.

She gunned the engine as the light changed green. Fuck that, she was done letting other people speak for her.

* * *

_Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock._

Her ….dad, Pete, he'd bought her a new desk clock. It was a fancy one, made of crystal. It looked like a miniature grandfather clock, only the pendulum spun. She had cried when she'd received it, baffling her mother and concerning Pete for a moment. It'd been the first thing he'd given her that was an actual _gift_, something that had taken time and him actually noticing things she liked. She'd smiled a watery smile at him, because laughter through tears was her favorite emotion. The hug she'd given him was unable to be helped, even though she'd tried to distance herself from him a bit. She knew the Doctor wanted her to mould into this life, to live a good life, but she couldn't suddenly delve into a relationship with her parallel father. It would take time. Not to mention her mother and Mickey were just pissing her off. It'd made her feel so alone in this world, more alone than she'd ever felt in her life. Her mum was eight months gone now, and all she and Mickey could talk about was how everyone was one big happy family. Whenever Rose was mentioned by her mum, her mum was always certain to mention, in a chuffed tone, how truly happy Rose was in this universe and how perfect it was for their family. It made Rose angry to hear it, not only because she was decidedly _unhappy_ but also because she hated being spoken for that way. Her mum knew how unhappy she was, how heartbroken she was. Her mum knew, and was trying to force the situation to her own comfort instead of taking Rose into account. It only solidified her darkest inner thoughts – that her _family_ would be better off without her. They'd certainly be happier. But she couldn't run off to her home universe, so that only left room for darker thoughts that she refused to entertain. Rose felt that darkness clawing at her right now, and made a snap decision to call the one other person she'd met in this universe that actually made her feel less alone. She picked up the phone, and dialed the extension for the Geek Department, aka Research and Development.

"Hello, Research and Development, this is Clive." Clive? She hadn't met him yet, but it was his first week, she knew that she would eventually.

"Hello Clive, its Rose Tyler. I need the latest paperwork on that ship that crash-landed last week."

"No problem Ms. Tyler…." he paused, asking 'what?' faintly to someone who sounded near him.

"... I'll send Beth." His voice had an odd tone, as though confused. Why did everyone take a funny tone when speaking to her? Oh, of course. Director's daughter. That's what it was. But he genuinely sounded confused by something, instead of using the 'walking on eggshells' tone.

"Actually, I was wondering if you could send John up to do it? Not that Beth isn't wonderful, but I'd like to ask his opinion on a few more things."

"…John? And which John would that be, Ms. Tyler?"

"John Smith. Your physicist." There was an awkward pause, and the sound of two people talking with the phone semi-covered. She couldn't hear, but then Beth came on the line.

"Of course Ms. Tyler, we'll send John right up. Can you leave any papers that you want him to take with on the side of your desk? Just so he doesn't forget?"

Rose smiled, comforted in an instant into forgetting how strange the conversation sounded. Clive sounded so confused and nervous, and Beth had sounded so coached… like she was reassuring a child that Santa existed. But it was easy to ignore as she gave her affirmative, and a few pleasantries before ending the phone call. She set her paperwork on the side of her desk and turned away from that part of her L-shaped desk, to the computer that faced away from the entrance to her cubicle. She heard the ding of the elevator, and was about to be excited, except she deflated upon only hearing Beth's voice, and no one else's. She sighed and went back to her computer. She'd seen something on her computer screen, someone was by her desk. She heard the sound of papers moving, and wanted to turn around, but something prevented her. Something inside, telling her not to. She counted the seconds with every tick and tock of her new desk clock, the dark thoughts trying to come back. They'd been festering all day, she realized. Because today was the day, the exact day, the anniversary of Bad Wolf Bay. This day every month was her worst day. She hated this.

Just as the feelings made her stomach feel cold, she heard a Manchester accent behind her, calling her attention.

"Specifically requesting my presence now, Tyler?" That could have been the most beautiful voice she'd ever heard in this universe. She smiled widely, and every dark thought was instantly forgotten as she turned around in her chair to face her friend.

"Why yes, Mopsy, you've caught me. I couldn't bear an instant without you." She laughed softly, and he looked at her, nodding at the paperwork on her desk.

"Got those figures for you, Tyler. But that's all boring. How about we skive off work and go for a walk?"

She grinned widely and grabbed her jacket. "You're a dreadful influence on me, Mopsy." She'd started calling him that when he'd insisted on calling her 'Tyler', claiming that it fit because he was a flopsy, mopsy, raggedy professor looking man, and after his initial offense, she'd told him it made him look cool. After, he accepted her nickname with pride.

"I'm the only influence on you, Tyler." What was that touch of foreboding? She smiled at him, walking away from her desk. He reached for her hand, and their hands touched. His touch was light and cold. She tried not to think about how much the cold skin reminded her of another, and only marveled at how perfectly their hands fit together.

"Cold hands," she murmured softly, walking to the lifts with him, pressing the button.

"Warm hearts," he murmured, but she couldn't be certain if that had been pluralized, or if it was just the sound the 't' made in the soft whisper he'd used.

The ding of the elevator broke her out of her reverie, and she smiled at him, feeling some relief.

* * *

Rose stood in the Hub by her team, going over a few pieces of paperwork. Her outfit was her usual one when actually doing Ops work. She preferred nice jeans, kitten heels or flats, and a good blouse occasionally paired with a blazer when doing only desk work, trying to keep it office casual. It made it easier to blend in with the crowd when they left for lunches off property. But when she was doing Ops work, she wore thick black leggings that made it easy to maneuvre any way necessary, knee high combat boots, a black shirt, and her black Torchwood zip up leather jacket. Her current jacket was asymmetrical, and one she preferred to keep unzipped and open when not on a case. She frowned, something was off with the paperwork, like it was missing an important page.

She walked over to Owen, who was patching up the idiot alien that they'd just saved from London police for crashing through a warehouse. Thank God he was humanoid. "Owen, I'm going to need a full report of every single treatment you applied on the Creoloid case, and this one you're currently in too. I keep missing paperwork to complete my files, and damn if it isn't always yours that goes missing!" her eyes narrowed. Owen was a brilliant doctor, but such a pain in the arse when it came to his personality.

Owen rolled his eyes while giving the alien, who insisted his name was 'Mister Sir', simply because he liked the way it sounded, sutures. "I told you I turned it in, the magenta bloody copy, just like you lot keep harping on me about."

"It's the goldenrod copy they need, Owen." muttered Tosh, from her laptop. She was absorbed, as usual. "When Gertrude receives your magenta copy she sends it down to the Archives, where the magenta copy _actually goes_."

Toshiko Sato really was a nice person. She was a whiz with computers, and contributed happily to their team. She considered everyone family, even the newer members that she hadn't known for very long. Tosh's hair was black and ramrod straight, brushing just past her shoulders, and her eyes were a soft shade of chocolate. Her brown eyes completed her in that way, reflecting her warm personality. She continued typing in the column for inventory, making an order for more ammo, and an extra net, since Owen lost the last one.

"I thought Rose received magenta, and Pete received the white, and Archives received the blue, and I kept the goldenrod," the black haired man insisted, almost petulantly. Really, he wasn't fooling anyone on the team, they knew he just didn't care about paperwork. He thought it was too corporate. His dark jeans showed all of the sploshes of the past day's events, some of it was blood, some of it chemical, and some sludge parts just didn't dignify identification. He adjusted his posture, feeling the soreness starting in his lower back.

Ruby Storm, another member on their team, let her head fall back in exasperation. She dressed in her Torchwood blacks just like everyone else, except she and Rose appeared to prefer the leggings. She had light brown hair down to her mid back, and never took her sunglasses off. She claimed they were prescription, but they were so dark you couldn't even really see her eyes. She and Owen usually clashed the hardest, because they were two very strong personalities. She shook her head at him, muttering under her breath and ignoring the pleading look Ianto shot her. He was always trying to avoid a confrontation between the two of them.

"I receive the goldenrod, Dad receives the blue, Archives gets the magenta, and _you keep the bloody white copy_." Rose grit out, tired of having this talk with him for the millionth time. She swore to God, if he wasn't such a great doctor, he would so be shit canned. For some odd reason, she even liked him. They all did. His personality left a lot to be desired, but he was one of them. They all looked out for each other at the end of the day, even if they occasionally fought like siblings.

Owen hated being interrupted while he was doing his work, and hated even more being wrong. So his next comment came out as a sarcastic pondering. "You know, I'm _shocked_ you didn't receive my magenta copy with the last case, Rose." He glanced up from stitching Mr. Sir to stare her in the eyes.

"Why is that, Owen?" she sighed in exasperation, finishing checking off that all the equipment was in place for their mission later on tonight. Her dad was counting on her to be at their home by dinner, because her mum was becoming quite hormonal of late, and as such, it was easier to have another woman around rather than the 'bastard who preggered her up'. Rose didn't want to have to tell them, but she'd already put her down payment on a flat and signed the lease with John. She had decided she was leaving their house before that baby came come hell or high water, because once Anthony was born she knew it would make it harder to go. She'd already moved out, but had done it so sneakily that they'd had no idea she hadn't been living with them for the past three weeks. She'd just been 'pulling an all-nighter' at the office, or 'going out with John!', not telling them the truth. But she would tonight.

"I gave it to John, of course. I knew he'd see you before I did, so I handed it to him. I think he said something about saving it for you!" His tone was almost singsong, and Tosh closed her eyes and grit her teeth at the computer. Ianto gave Owen a look, as though he was shocked to near devastation at the way he was acting. Rose sighed in irritation, not taking note of the way her other team members were staring at the medic. "Owen, for Christ's sake! It is _not_ John's job to deal with your paperwork! You take advantage of his mercy, you do!" she muttered under her breath about people who couldn't follow orders if their lives depended on it, and shook her head.

"Without all of the paperwork in line, there's no way we'll have an all systems go for tonight. I'll run up and fetch your page from John, but I _mean it,_ Owen. Start filing properly or I'm putting you on leave."

She headed to the lifts, and as soon as the doors closed, Owen made "Cuckoo, cuckoo!" noises.

Tosh spoke up first. "What is your _problem,_ Owen?" she was so disgusted with his behavior, she couldn't even believe it. True, Rose was a bit... unique, but she was a great team leader and always took care of them. "So she doesn't remember some guy's name or occasionally forgets that someone doesn't work here! She's the director's daughter, she's met so many employees it must be difficult to keep them all straight. You can't mock her for that..."

Ruby gave Owen an unforgiving stare from behind her aviators. "His problem is that he is an absolute horse's arse."

Ianto sighed, giving up in an instant. he was impeccably dressed, as usual, and brushed off invisible flecks of dust from his vest. He really cared about other people, especially the people on this team. He understood Rose had her issues, but when it came down to it, her issues didn't ever interfere with missions or her capabilities at work. But her issue was not forgetting someone's name, in Ianto's opinion, as much as it was a poor attempt at lying. Owen had dropped many hints before that he thought that Rose was sleeping with the Archives Keeper, and that was the source of his mocking comment. Ianto found it to be exceptionally distasteful and rude. But even if she was, if she chose to hide it, that was her decision, her privacy. Working at Torchwood was enough to make anyone just a little bit barmy, at any rate, let alone being Director Tyler's daughter and feeling like she had something to prove. He pinched the bridge of his nose. They at least had Rose as their team leader, instead of someone vile like Alexis, and Owen should be more grateful.

"Owen, seriously. If she is having... a relationship... then that is her business. Don't muck it up by being this way. Nobody mocks you for your obsessive narcissism." Ianto murmured, picking an invisible thread off his shirt.

Ruby snorted, pulling on her red leather jacket. Tosh stared at her with a raised eyebrow, waiting for an explanation, but the former UNIT member paid her no mind. Owen looked offended. "First, I _will_ mock her for it because bopping that old geezer is fucking gross, and... nobody what?! That's _bullshit_, you lot _always_ mock me for it! Especially _you!_" he shot Ruby an accusational glare, which she didn't even dignify, loading her gun belt.

"Old geezer..." murmured Tosh, whose face changed to shock as everything added up in her mind.

"Kind of fun when every part of your brain starts working together to come to a conclusion, eh?" Ruby jibed her lightly, smirking at Tosh's blush.

"That brings up another thing. Why do you always fight with Ruby anyhow? You fight like an old married couple. Just ask each other out, already!" Ianto joked, trying to lighten the mood further.

Owen glared at Ruby, who gave him her most unkind sharksmile she could manage. "Because I'm out of his league," she responded, coolly.

"_Excuse you?!_" Owen damn near shrilled his words, shocked to his core about them. It wasn't that he liked his teammate, it was just the insult that he was somehow inadequate.

"You heard me," she murmured on a sigh, as though having to explain herself was a burden in and of itself. "I'm out of your league. So far out of your league in fact, that your league could _explode_," she made an explosion gesture with her hands, to further emphasize her point, "and I wouldn't hear the sound for the next five days."

Owen was lost for words. This had never happened to him before. He didn't like it one bit. The other members were so amused, and Owen was so offended, that their previous subject of Rose's oddness was completely forgotten.

* * *

In the lift, Rose had been unable to explain her nerves. For some reason, that conversation had bothered her. It shouldn't have, but it felt like something was under threat. It wasn't, of course. But, eugh. She didn't like Owen speaking to John. Owen was a rude twat, he'd said so himself. Why would he try to talk to John? Why would John let him? Why was she so overprotective of John? He was a thirty year old man, he was fully capable of taking care of himself, she didn't know what her issue was. But for some reason, she felt scared. Unnerved. Was it the mission that was bothering her, too? She heard a chuckle next to her, right when her stomach began to twist in knots. Christ, when had this life become tap dancing on a razor- wait, laughter? Tutting? She turned to her right as she saw Mopsy, who murmured, "Ignoring me, Tyler? So cruel."

"Mopsy! You gave me a fright! ...How are you in here? I don't remember it stopping on any floor..."

"I was already in the _lift_, Tyler. I was heading to R&D but you know the lifts are programmed so the Hub has priority."

Yes, she did know that, didn't she? She knew that. He was prattling on now, about research he was doing with his group, and she inhaled deeply. She felt at total ease, and then the dinging of the lift making it to the Archives reached her ears. John had told her that Owen had left his file with the Recordskeeper. She left the lift, and headed down into Archives, muttering about what a sod Owen could really be, sliding her ID card and gaining entrance.

"Daffyd, are you about?" She called out, the silence of such a large, metal room filled with shelves of files made the ticking noise of her stopwatch so loud. She could hear her wristwatch, her ring watch... _tick tock tick tock tick tock_ and she didn't know where the hell the old man was. "Daffyd? Dave? Are you here?" she heard shuffling from a few feet in front of her, and it made her blink, eyes wide. A voice spoke to her, calling her back. An adult woman's voice, a gentle voice. "Rose, you've gone someplace else again. We can't make the most of our session if you cease speaking to me and just zone out."

The entire Archives room disappeared, and she found herself looking up at a beautiful woman, mid thirties, hair done back in a casual, but professional bun. She was wearing an elegant grey pantsuit, sitting in a chair right beside where Rose was sitting on a divan. Shrink couch. Rose wrinkled her nose as she saw the garish, burgundy leather thing. She was in a pair of stylishly worn out jeans, a nice white shirt, and a white blazer that had rolled up sleeves and buttoned at just below her elbows. She didn't remember wearing that this morning. She remembered having her hair pulled up, not down. When did she buy those nude flats? She didn't remember them... She glanced up, but looked beyond the woman, trying to figure out where she was. She was in a shrink's office, but _why?_ She couldn't think of why. She couldn't hear any ticking from the woman's clock she had in the room. She didn't like that, clocks making no noise. It was unnatural. She heard the ticking from her pocketwatch, and reached for it's usual spot, but instead stopped, feeling heaviness of it around her neck. She looked up at the woman in front of her, and wanted to open the watch, but something in her mind told her not to. She didn't know what was in the watch, but she could almost hear Mopsy's Manchester lilt on the gentle breeze from the ceiling fan, floating across the room to her. _Don't open the watch, Rose... don't open it. It would be bad..._

She believed him, instantly. Mopsy knew _everything_.

"Why am I here..." She murmured, less a question than a whimper. She didn't remember being here, it was scaring her.

"Let's start with something a bit less daunting, shall we, Miss Tyler? May I call you Rose...?"

"I'd rather," Rose murmured. "But for some reason, I don't think you're here to give me good news..."

The woman deflected the statement with an elegant flick of her hand, as though she could bat it away. She spoke again, asking Rose a question. "Do you know who I am, Rose?"

Rose looked toward the desk behind her, but the nameplate wasn't facing out. She looked along the walls, trying to figure out if she could see anything, a degree, something with a name. The degrees were on the wall, all right, but behind the woman's desk. They were so hard to read from this angle.

"Try to remember on your own, Rose," She said, gently.

Rose tried, she really did. She just couldn't. "I... I can't," she whispered.

"I'm Julie Bowers. I'd like to give you my full title, but I've been advised that there is a certain set of words that cause psychological regression in you," she murmured, carefully. "Just know I have my degree, and am qualified to treat you."

Rose wanted to be grateful. Julie. The name matched nothing, she felt like the past few hours were a blur. How many... wait, _treated_?! She felt panicked. "How... how many..." she was most panicked about that. She kept such constant count, she counted in her head all the time, every single tick, every single tock. 86,400 seconds in a day, 1,440 minutes, 12 hours. She counted all of them, adjusting for them each time she slept. How many hours had she lost? How many minutes? "How many hours did I lose? My seconds... my minutes... where are they?" She felt robbed.

Julie smiled, gently. "Time is very important to you, isn't it Rose?"

Rose nodded, slowly. She was staring at the clock as though it could answer her, but it didn't matter how much she counted now, her count was off.

"Rose, I want you to tell me the last thing you remember."

"...I was going to see Daffyd."

"Davith?" Julie mispronounced the Welshman's name only slightly.

"Recordskeeper... I couldn't find him," she stated, plainly.

"You and Daffyd are friends." Julie took note of this, calmly, writing on a pad of paper in a leather, professional binder.

"What are ya writin'?" Rose asked, suddenly, as a trickle of fear ran down her spine.

"Don't worry," Julie placated, calmly. "I'm a psychiatrist, I'm just jotting down notes. For instance, I just wrote that you and Daffyd were friends. That's all. Nothing bad."

Rose felt relieved at that. "What is this about? Why can't I remember what happened?"

"I'm going to have you slowly come to terms with this," Julie murmured, softly. She was being as caring as she could. "Do you remember preparing for the mission you had...? Your most recent one?"

Rose nodded slowly, still trying to come to terms with this. She had lost time, and apparently, something traumatic had happened to her. She sucked in her breath, she was used to strange things happening, she had been since she changed from being a 19 year old shopgirl. She kept telling herself that she shouldn't react, not until she knew what happened. She needed to save her feelings for when her memory came back. She took a few deep breaths, and then noticed Julie was waiting to be filled in. "I... Owen was acting like an arse... he misfiled some important paperwork... it's his fourth time doing that... I had to go and retrieve it."

Julie nodded, writing down things after Rose spoke, on her fancy paper, and upon finishing, asked, "Do you remember what happened after you sought out the Recordskeeper, Daffyd?"

Rose opened her mouth, and then frowned. "I... I went back downstairs... I told Owen to refile it later... I said I'd take the heat this time, but he needed to be more responsible or I'd sack him this time, I swore it. ...I didn't mean it, though. I'd never sack him. He's like family, he is."

Julie continued writing, and murmured "So Owen is often of a surly disposition, then?"

Rose nodded the affirmative. "He's a self-admitted right twat."

Julie choked, for a moment, then nodded slowly. "Can you tell me what happened when you were on your way to the mission?"

Rose stared down at her pocketwatch, still not opening it. She refused to, but she heard the comforting _tick tock tick tock_ and she counted as usual. She began to speak.

* * *

"Oh would the two of you give it a rest, already?!" Sandra complained, listening to the row coming from Owen and Ruby. Well, it was mostly Owen, Rose's memory served. Ruby was calmly responding, while Owen was losing his mind, rapidly. He just could not believe that a woman would treat him that way. He fancied himself like Jack Harkness but in all reality he was nowhere near that calibre. He scratched his fingers through his black hair, the insult was too much to bear.

"I am _too_ good looking!" Owen protested. What was wrong with him? Slightly tanned skin, dark eyes, medium height... he wasn't bad looking at all! He was quite fit!

"I told you, of course you're good looking, _to you_. I don't have to share that opinion. Looks are subjective, you do nothing for me." Ruby rolled her eyes, but no one else could see it through the aviators she constantly donned. She pulled her cinnamon brown locks into a tight bun, pursing her lips in the mirror.

"... I turn down women left and right!"

"Your women _are_ your left and right, Owen." Ruby muttered in an unimpressed tone, picking at an invisible thread on her jacket. Owen looked like his head was about to explode.

"You're just in a snit because you know I'm much better at my job than you are!" the medical officer snarled, his sexual prowess obviously not winning any battles. Perhaps his career could. He had been chosen for his talent, had been top in his class. Now, there was this woman he wanted to strangle. Or snog. ...Wait what? No no no no no. Strangle.

"Owen... don't write a check with your mouth you can't cash with your arse. Now shut it and concentrate," Ruby muttered, looking for all the world like she was completely unaffected by the entire exchange. That made Owen more furious. She didn't even have the decency to be angry. Not even affected by him _at all._ He couldn't stand it.

"Owen, Storm, would the two of you _take your love outside_?!" Rose snapped, unable to concentrate on mapping the interior for recon. Ruby glanced up from her cell phone, one elegant eyebrow raised in question. Rose never called her by her last name. Ruby reached over, and gently squeezed Rose's shoulder, calming her down almost instantly. Rose blinked a bit, and scanned the blueprints on the screen, before finishing mapping out their plans. When they finally exited the van and began to suit up with their bulletproof vests and weaponry, Owen stomped right behind Ruby, watching her calmly strapping her guns on herself.

"I could _never_ love a soulless bitch like you." He sneered, moving next to her and grabbing his favorite gun.

"You'll never have the opportunity." she deadpanned, stopping as she was completely ready, and turning to look at him, the streetlight glinting in her aviators. "And I finish first. _Again." _with that she turned heel and moved to the rest of the group who were receiving orders and earwigs. Rose moved next to Owen to strap her own weapons - all blades. Katana, two machetes, daggers. Rose was well known for refusing to use guns. She didn't feel they were fair. She used blades because they reminded her of the Doctor... her nerdy little Errol Flynn. But her mind wasn't on that now, it was on the mission.

"You really need to let this go, Owen," she advised, calmly. "You just keep letting her get your goat, and it's getting pathetic to watch."

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

Rose was behind the set of gunmen, the Torchwood agents who were clearing level one. She stayed back wisely, watching as Ruby and Sandra kept their heavy artillery at the ready to clear the floor. The weapons resembled sniper rifles, but shot a thick laser light, which would stun the intended target and send them to the floor, unconscious, instantly. Ruby was nodding at the sound of Tosh's voice over the comm, informing each member of the team when rooms needed to be cleared. So far, not a hostile in sight. This was worrying. Sandra peeked her burgundy coif out of a room, looking Rose dead in the eye, and making some military hand signals.

_Room is clear. Reason to be suspicious._

Rose looked at another team member, he was from an extra squad. Michael was his name. Sandy blonde hair, and a haunted look in his brown eyes, all the time. His mocha colored skin was brought out even more by the silver blade he held. He was another agent who preferred the sword to a gun. She held him in such respect for that, such high respect. He understood, he got it. He was the one who had given her the protective bracers that were on her wrists right now, looking like something out of a steampunk novel. Brown leather, gold decoration. They hid retractable blades. She loved them, feeling like she was some sort of assassin of old with them on. She held up one wrist, nodding at him in thanks and salute. He nodded back, solemnly. It was their silent communication that kept her nerves down.

Ruby's soft murmur through the commlink made all of their heads turn toward the entrance. "Level one is clear, Boss. I don't like it. The rooms are clear, the machines are off, but they're warm. I think they were expecting this. We might be looking at an ambush. What do you want to do?"

Rose frowned. It wasn't her call, and she looked up at the head of the mission, Joseph. He seemed to be thinking for a moment, and she shook her head at him. "Suggest we pull out for now, corral a bigger squad. We don't know their arms." Rose murmured, but Joseph disagreed. "No need to pull out. We're moving forward, and that includes you, Tyler. Let's go back your daddy proud, huh?" He spoke in such a chipper voice. It was hard to begrudge him for wanting this victory, but Rose still could. Her team's lives were important. Even Owen's. Rose sighed, she had her orders. She went in with the next crew while Ruby and Sandra were taking on level two.

"Be careful," she murmured, "I want us all available tonight for the Pub Quiz."

She could almost feel Sandra's smile. "I always am available to whip your arse, Miss Tyler." she chuckled softly, finishing the ascension of the stairs.

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick..._

Rose looked around, the walls seeming to melt around her as she was back in the office. She was speaking to Julie. She looked down at her hands, holding onto her pocketwatch tightly, as though it held her entire life force in it. She frowned as her phone chimed, again. She pulled her phone out, and smiled a bit. Mopsy. She read the text, calmly. _How about we go clock shopping again? Devereaux's has brand new stock, from Vienna!_ She smiled at the text, and set her phone back in her pocket.

"Did you receive an SMS...?" Julie questioned in confusion. Rose nodded, slowly. "From my friend." Julie smiled softly, writing that down. "Will you tell me what happened when you came into contact with the hostiles?"

Rose looked at the clock again. It had been over two hours at this appointment. She hated this shit. She would much rather be shopping with Mopsy. Buying a brand new grandfather clock. She needed them. She sighed. "We made it to the second floor, and it was so quiet... it was eerily quiet. and the windows were covered in boards. Tosh's voice was telling us that she saw something on the cameras she had hacked into, something just glancing across the screen..."

_Tick. Tock. Tick..._

Rose was looking around the room she'd entered right behind Ruby, who was checking the corners. There were boards on the windows, and the little bit of streetlight that came through showed the dust particles flying in the air. There were linens on the floor that had been used to cover the decrepit machines... or machines that _should_ be decrepit. These machines were far too advanced to be from this time or planet. They were warm. Rose had a knot in her stomach, and moved to tell Joseph over the comm more firmly that they should just _leave_, when the first explosion hit. Rose ran to the sound.

Rose froze in the middle of her stride, seeing both things happening at once...She could hear the explosions set off by the hostile aliens that were in the warehouse, see members of her team flying backwards. Rose was running as fast as she could, trying to get to Sandra, who was trapped under a piece of the roof. Running with all of the particles in the air, Rose could almost taste burnt skin. Ruby's voice over the commlink told her that Owen had been injured while trying to med-evac Giulia, a member of Joseph's team. She almost made it to Sandra, calling her name, but time seemed to slow down. The explosions seemed almost muted, when she saw the next large, metal ball roll over right in front of Sandra, who was choking out that Rose should leave her. Rose's fingers had barely brushed hers when the ball exploded. The force sent Rose backward, nearly three metres, and she bounced once, skidding along the wooden floor. Her ears were ringing, and her life felt much the same. She was so stunned, slowly bracing herself up on her side, by one elbow, looking at the spot that Sandra had been. The body that was there was burnt up, bloodied beyond repair... Rose was blinded by tears and ash. It felt like the ash was everywhere, in her eyes, her nose, her mouth... she felt vibrations under her body, people running, gunfire in the air, the metal balls rolling.

She got up, gimping hard, struggling for balance but listening not only to her instincts but also to her training. She trusted her training, she trusted her parallel... no, just her dad. She trusted her dad, who had overseen a lot of her training. She was at a severe disadvantage, injured, pain lancing up the sides of her leg, and she definitely had a sprained ankle. Was that shrapnel in her leg? She didn't let herself consider it, just let her mind move. She saw a flash to her right, a hostile who was coming at her. She moved her hands, the reflexes fluid and natural, sending the retractable blade out. Her hand flashed, and a green substance that passed for it's blood sprayed across the air. She couldn't hear as well, but she allowed her other senses to take over, her adrenaline making her forget the pain in her leg. She would get her team the hell out of this killzone. They had tried to be kind, calling out to them initially, telling them to stand down and cooperate with Torchwood. The hostiles had responded with explosions of violence.

No second chances, she thought to herself as she clicked her blade back into her wrist, pulling her twin machetes out of their hilts on her back, glaring like a goddess of vengeance, seeing through the dust that came off the ground. She charged, moving to protect the others, and get them out. She would worry about the corpses later, and getting them proper funerals. But the hostiles had to experience loss as well.

No second chances. She was that kind of woman.

* * *

Julie continued writing her notes, smiling at the progress that Rose had made, even though it was a sad smile. Rose had been traumatized to the point of being in shock for the past 72 hours. She had been existing in that state, in a robotic state, and had been brought to Julie by her father in order to work her out of it. Rose had been there for six hours, and had only begun speaking around two hours ago. Rose continued telling her about taking down some of the hostiles, her team managing the rest, and them making it out of the warehouse. Julie knew that Rose had not had the presence of mind to make it back for body retrieval, she'd fallen into shock before then, along with a few other members of the team.

"Please, tell me the last thing you remember, Rose," she murmured, placatingly. Rose was starting to get more visibly shaken, and they couldn't afford a regression when she'd made so much progress. Rose was a strong woman, she'd noted. Her mind was set for survival, no matter what it had to do to convince her to survive. This was found in many soldiers, but Julie wondered what other kind of experiences she must have had before entering Torchwood to make her that way.

"I went out last, after everyone else did... and it was daylight... it had the nerve to be daylight out... like the sun rose without us... I was blinded by my own tears... I could hardly see... I was..." overcome with emotion. Unable to process what had happened. In need of anything... "I saw John... I screamed his name, and he rushed to me, holding onto me. He held my face in his hands, and he was calling to me, but... I couldn't hear very well..."

Julie nodded at that, blinking a bit. She'd read the report, and knew about Rose's encounter. Something about the way Rose spoke suddenly made her head snap up. "What was that...?" Julie murmured, writing something down.

"I said he felt so warm... but John is never warm. He's always cold, you see... cold hands, warm hearts... but, he was so warm... and his face wavered." It really had. As though he hadn't been himself. Julie frowned a bit, and instantly went into Rose's file, looking through it. She had seen the entire report, and raised an eyebrow. "Rose, don't you mean Geoffrey?"

Rose blinked a bit, shaking her head. "Geoffrey? Why would I mean Geoffrey?"

"Geoffrey is the name of the man who you ran to, after you made it out of the warehouse." Julie murmured.

"No," she said, firmly. "No, I would know Mopsy _anywhere._ It was John. He's my best mate. He's the only... he... it was him." She nodded quickly, and Julie shook her head, softly.

"What does John look like, Rose?" she questioned, curiously. When Rose described him, Julie showed her a picture of an Asian man, medium height and thin build, cropped hair and soft black eyes. Rose stared at the image as though she had never seen it before. Did she know who that was? "Who is that...?"

"Rose, this is Geoffrey. He is the one who you ran to."

Rose became upset, and felt her stomach knotting. She didn't want this conversation. She didn't want to hear it. She heard her phone chime, and looked down at it, clicking the screen on. It was Mopsy!

_Let's have dinner. Chips?_

She smiled at the text, he always knew what to say. Julie asked her how she'd met Mopsy, and Rose told the tale calmly, her phone away, playing with the watch again. Her words stood out to Julie like giant warning bells, but the last thing she'd said made Julie buzz through Rose's file again. She'd said that John was her flatmate, renting with her. "Is John on the lease?" Julie asked, raising an eyebrow. Rose was in Torchwood flats, so she had a copy of her lease in her file.

"Of course he's on the lease. He's so big on little things like that," she said plainly, looking at Julie. What was this woman getting at? Her tone was clipped, she felt so defensive. Why was she so tense?

"Rose... there is only one name on this lease. Yours," Julie said, handing her the paperwork. "There is a single occupant in the one bedroom flat. You," she continued, now knowing the problem. It was one she hadn't seen for a while. Rose's mind was being a survivalist, deciding that she was unable to handle something, something to which Julie was unaware of, so it gave it back to her. "When you're upset, does John randomly appear?" her voice lilted a bit at the end, trying so hard not to upset this girl, who had already come in in a fragile state.

"I... of course he does, we're best mates," Rose insisted, her voice becoming even more angry. all of a sudden, her phone chimed again. She looked down. Mopsy again. He was being awful persistent...

_I've made a paperclip chain necklace for myself, and a rubber band ball for you... rubber band balls are cool._

Rose smiled at it, her system calming. But Julie moved forward, taking the calm away. "Has anyone else ever spoken to John in front of you? Does he speak about his other friends? Do the two of you hang with other people?"

Rose was about to vent her spleen on this woman for being ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous, when Julie drove the point home. "Rose, I'd like you to do me a favor. Will you?"

Rose nodded. If it got her off of her back...

"Open your phone."

Rose unlocked the screen. She looked back up to Julie for further instructions. Her knots in her stomach were insane.

"Please, open your messaging inbox."

Oh god, she didn't want to do this. She didn't want this. Her fingers moved of their own accord, and she clicked the inbox.

"Tell me what is in the inbox?"

Rose looked down at it, and suddenly let out a choked noise. _Messages (0)_. No, no no no... she and Mopsy always texted! Where had her texts gone?! Her eyes watered as she came to a realization... all of their conversations... she felt like she was being walked through her own memories by force, taking note of the fact that no one else had seemed to speak to Mopsy... ever... not even Gertrude... she remembered glancing into the reflection on her screen. Seeing Mopsy walking up... then he morphed... into... Beth?! ...herself and Mopsy moving into her new flat... he lived out of those boxes, he never unpacked... going clock shopping with him, all of a sudden the stares that the people at Devereaux's made at her were noticeable... the way he told her the entire history of every single antique they'd seen... it hadn't been him... she'd been reading the history on a placard and heard his voice in her head. Sitting in Hyde Park, giggling with him and texting... she'd known Mopsy for six months... she clicked the next button, Drafts. _Drafts (9999) _and she clicked the first one. From her to Mopsy. The next was from Mopsy to _her_. Oh God no. Please no. Not the only person who had helped her begin to feel human again. Not the only person who she felt like she actually had, not the only person who made her feel safe, secure, accepted... not judged... not rushed... no please. Please.

She hadn't realized she'd said all of that out loud, and she couldn't hear Julie trying to calm her. Mopsy holding her face in his hands after the warehouse morphed into Geoffrey's face, and his words came to her. "Miss Tyler, it's all right. You're out of there! Medic!" She felt her insides twist on themselves, as a lone tear slid down her cheek. All of a sudden a tidal wave of blackness broke over her head, and her entire world was completely obliterated... just for a few minutes. But it was long enough. She had gone round the bend, she knew it. She'd been on a slippery slope, and no one had known well enough to know how to help her, if it was at all possible to be helped. She got up and rushed out, ignoring Julie's calls of her name, trying to plead with her to return. The darkness of her mind and the darkness in that room was just too much. The one person keeping her darkest of thoughts at bay didn't exist. She went the only place she could.

* * *

Rose was in her flat, and she had completely broken down. Her entire world was shattered, she didn't know what to do. The little supports she had built for herself, they were all gone. She had begun to build a life for herself, and that just didn't fucking matter anymore, because she was absolutely spare and had spent time talking to herself. Six months of time. She had spent twelve months driving her family spare as well. They had just wanted to move on from Canary Wharf and enter smoothly into their new life, and there she had been - a bitter reminder. A child her mother had had with another version of her father. Her inability to forget her universe, her love of the Doctor... oh God. She loved him so much, and she knew that it was possible to love someone for the rest of your life, she'd seen her mother do it for her father's memory... but the Doctor wasn't dead, not to her knowledge - just... could never see her again. Her family was moving on. Her mum had had her little brother a little bit ago... her tears slid down her face. They were better off without her.

"They aren't..."

"Shut it Mopsy, you aren't bloody _real_," she snapped, reaching into a drawer and pulling out the gun her father had left for her, in case of emergency. Perfect. This would be quick. Cyanide pills, a slit alongside the veins of the arm, maybe even a bad half hour standing on a roof... she'd considered them all. Even jumping off the bridge, right into the Thames. It would have been poetic. If she wasn't so afraid of being caught, she would definitely make it even more poetic, and go to the store room in the Parallel Henrik's. But God, doing it someplace public, she may as well put the gun back in the fucking drawer for all the good it would do. Some do-gooder would find her and save her life.

She put the gun in her mouth, eyes closed, ignoring Mopsy's worried noise he made in his throat. "Please... Please..."

Rose could taste it. The revolver was cold and greasy, the metallic taste an unpleasant twinge when mixed with her fillings. Her finger was on the trigger, hand shaking. Her thoughts swarmed around how much better off her family would be without her, how her teammates must have been so burdened by her insanity, how that was definitely the reason why she had no one else but Daffyd and her own imagination as her friends... friends... were they even _friends_?! Oh God... but the Doctor... those thoughts were the worst of all. The Doctor, and Jack... and Mickey... they would be so severely disappointed in her... she closed her eyes, and inhaled.

"Stop thinking of only the bad times. There were good times, Rose Tyler. There were so many good times. Do you remember when you bought the banana jam...?"

_Shut up, brain, shut up, can't you let me die in peace?!_ She thought to herself. But she couldn't fight the memory. The Doctor had been so excited to crack open the banana confection, and he'd begun to eat it... with his _fingers_. Rose had stepped out of her kitchen, and had been shocked. It was unfair, really. He was so beautiful, and she loved him... and now he was sucking on his fingers in an unintentionally sensual way. She'd gasped out loud, making him look up at her, index and middle finger in his mouth, cognac eyes wide. "Roab!" he'd said, mouth full.

"Doctor... what _are_ you even doing?! That's disgusting, and uncouth!"

"...Rose, this is _my_ jar of jam. You gave it to me, so it's _mine._ I'm _allowed_ to do this."

"Doctor, _nobody_ should be allowed to do that."

"But _Rose! _Rose, it's _mine._" he whinged.

"How _old_ are you, Doctor?" she'd teased, making him respond to her through his fingers again, so she couldn't hear his age for certain.

Rose let out a choked sob, able to see Mopsy sitting on her nightstand, crosslegged. She shook her head. No, no that wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to make her let this go. She needed to get rid of this darkness, there was no way out of this. There were parts of this universe that she could almost feel pulling at her, telling her to make. this. happen. She could feel Mopsy appear right next to her, could feel his presence right next to her. He looked at her, and she knew he wouldn't let her do it.

"You're living the one adventure-"

"Fuck your adventure!" She shouted at him, pulling the gun from her mouth, angrily. She kept it on her, holding it against her. She just couldn't... "I don't want it... I don't... that was what _you wanted for me_. Because you thought that I wanted it, but I don't, I haven't wanted it since I told you it was better with two! I was never ready to turn back, it was always you looking backwards for me, why?!" her only response was him looking down. Because he didn't know the answer. He didn't know the answer because she didn't know it. Or maybe she did, and just didn't want to hear it.

"I... I'm speaking to imaginary people... not even... not even aliens that people think are imaginary, actual imaginary... I've gone..." she moved the gun against her temple, and closed her eyes. She didn't need to explain to herself what she already knew. She was done. She was living in an imaginary realm inside of her head, obviously, and if that was what she needed to survive, no wonder she was burdenous. She counted, softly. Just as she inhaled, she swore she felt Mopsy behind her, breath on her ear.

"What you're imagining right now... that world you control? The world that gives you control, the world where I exist... that world can be as real as any pain..." he whispered.

Something in her broke at that, and she found herself putting the gun back in the drawer, just in time for the two hundred and thirteen clocks in her flat to chime the changing of her hour. She should have known she would fail, she chided herself softly. A successful suicide would have demanded good organization and a cool head... ironically, both of which are usually incompatible with a suicidal state of mind. Rose laid on the floor that night, in the middle of her flat, with Mopsy lying with her. She allowed the pain and the darkness to permeate her being, because fighting it had done nothing.

"It's not as though it's my _self_ that I want to kill..." she murmured, and Mopsy made a noise of curiosity - a deep one in the back of his throat. "It's just part of myself I want to kill... I want to kill the part of myself that wants to kill herself. I want to kill the part of myself that makes me view the entire world as sharp and frightening... because right now everything is sharp, and menacing... and I can't handle this slow path shit..." she breathed. But she made no move to leave her spot. Mopsy nodded slowly, in understanding. She was looking at him, face resting against the carpet, their hands linked. They were L shaped, like her desk. He was staring at her, green orbs meeting soft brown.

The clocks around them ticked and tocked with every passing instant, and she counted all of them.

* * *

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Rose scowled, trying to think. She needed out of here in the worst way, but they were so smart. Coming here, to the Dark Hotel, as it was called, you didn't get to contact the outside. The world went on without you, you were locked away. There was no one else she had a connection with outside of the Doctor and his TARDIS, but they were so constantly in motion that even if she had the ability to tap into Bad Wolf, she didn't know if she could lock onto them in order to try and speak to them. The TARDIS was so protected... it just wouldn't work... who else did she have a connection with?! Who else could she turn to...?

Mopsy would not stop telling her to eat, even though she knew she had already made the damned agreement, even though she had the stupid calendar. She'd promised, one meal a day. Except for Sunday, she didn't have to eat on Sunday. It was the agreement she and Doris had made. But she knew she didn't want to deal with Doris and deal with her appointment today as well... but the sound of Mopsy's whinging at her to survive... it was driving her more spare than she already was. She finally gave in to her feelings, and vented her spleen a bit at him. "Tyler, I really think you should eat, I don't want her to punish you, and you need your strength. I know you think they are poisoned, but you have no other means of sustenance... Tyler please. Just eat."

"Stop it, stop it, stop it! You always do this, Mopsy, you always try and make me eat, even though you know I have my reasons! It isn't just the poison, and you know it! It's so important, what if it happens, what if it's finally here?! My opportunity passes because I'm _full_?! You're always harping on me, _always!_ Shut it! Button it up!" she shouted, her voice going shrill.

Mopsy's shoulders slumped, and he stood against the wall. He was defeated. He murmured "Rose Tyler... I exist because you created me, just as you exist because you created yourself. I am merely a representation of the Doctor... I'm him, but different... and I am here because you want me here. If I upset you so deeply... then send me away. I come from your mind, so you can kill me just as easily as thinking about it. But if you kill me, don't delay it out... if you're going to kill me, then just do it..." he meant every word. His voice didn't waver. This wasn't emotional Mopsy, this was... she couldn't explain it. A lone tear streaked down her face.

"Miss Tyler!" came the sound of Doris' voice outside the door, as she rapped on it twice. "Hurry it up with your lunch, you have an appointment with Dr. Chambers in twenty minutes. Is this going to be a difficult day?" the last sentence was a threat, and Doris' heels clicking on the floor told of her leaving to the next patient's door.

"Kill you..." Rose murmured in a dead sounding voice. "Why would I do that...?" Before Mopsy could speak again, she finished her thoughts with a finality that made the silence sound echoed. "You're my only friend..."

_Of course_, she thought to herself suddenly. She was connected with one other.

_Jack_.

* * *

**Thank you very much for reading, and I know it was dark. It will get a bit darker, but I promise, it is a romance fic, and she will be reunited with the Doctor. This is a Doctor/Rose fic, and while it does have dark themes, I just love writing it.**

**So please, read and review, and hopefully you liked it! Each chapter will be long. I like to have a complete arch.**

**Thanks again!**

**Natural-blues**


	2. The Shadow of the Real

**Thank you guys for the follows and favorites! Also, the reviews, you guys are awesome and I blushed. Okay, this chapter sets up my villain, and has a lot of psychological, asylum issues going on. I'm warning you, there is a part where suicide is discussed, there is actual psychological treatments dispersed and discussed, and lives are threatened, people are chased, it is a fairly decent horror chapter. It also fills in some more of Rose's past before entering the asylum, including how she got there in the first place.**

**It hints at who Ruby is, and why she's important. Any guesses?**

**Rose's outfit in this and the Doctor's outfit are linked on my profile.**

**The bracelet in this chapter was borrowed with permission from the lovely Bubblygal92, (from the story Tales from the Vortex ) and she deserves all forms of props for this. Thank you to her, and because of this, this chapter is dedicated completely to her.**

**This chapter is, as always, in thanks to skittttlezz's patience, and she should know I lush her.**

**Also a huge thank you to Supernena25 for letting me use her name as a planet.  
**

**Thank you lot!**

* * *

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

Existing with an imaginary friend, knowing that your feelings had finally broken, knowing that your entire universe had been taken from you... knowing that something else had been working within, something _had to be contributing to this_... it was honestly like living within a parallel world while inside of a bloody parallel world. It was bullocks, it was in no way what she'd wanted for herself. None of it. She felt weak and vulnerable, staring out the car window and watching the trees go by, slowly blurring. Jake was driving, and she rested her head against the window, feeling the cold seep in. Mopsy was humming a bit next to her, concerned about her. He always hovered.

Rose had been seeking connection, not certain where to turn for such. She could ask Mopsy, but she thought that maybe she should try another human being. Maybe it might be healthier... but she didn't want to actually reveal herself. She tried going online, trying to use an anonymous, blogging form of social media to express her feelings. She'd done it on an anonymous server, on an anonymous website, with a random username... nothing to identify herself. She'd gotten messages before completely deleting it out of fear of it eventually being tied back to her somehow; of it erasing what comfort she had. Some of the messages had been cruel, encouraging her to harm herself. _As though she needed their permission._

Though if she was honest, one of the cruel messages had gone into detail and tinged on some of her own worst fears - _'Ur just a fkin burden to soceity lol. U shud kll urself to spare ur fam hvin to deal w u.'_ - great spelling, arsehole.

The anonymous andy must have had a lot of friends, because after that she'd received an onslaught of messages of varying spelling ability, all telling her that she truly was a mistake, and that she'd be better off dead. The echoing had sent her on a bad half an hour on the roof of the apartment building, contemplating life and arguing with Mopsy about whether she could, should, or was even planning on doing anything rash. By the end of the half hour, she'd found a brand new way to make herself feel better - yelling on a roof. She yelled random things to absolutely no one, and let her feelings be carried on the wind, because in London she was just another random noise in a city filled with neon lights and noise. Mopsy called it healthy release.

_Tick. Tock._ There went her pocketwatch.

She screamed out loud, at the top of her lungs, and yet she may as well have only been opening her mouth - the construction work on the two buildings near hers completely deafened the world to her... and wasn't that ironic. Not everyone had been as violently cruel as them, though. Others had been gentle, curious. 'How did you become crazy?' What they really wanted to know was if they were secretly crazy as well, if somehow, by reading that post, they would magically catch the crazy or discover they'd always been so. She couldn't answer the _real_ question, she could only answer the one _written_. The only thing she could say was that it was easy. It was - slipping into a parallel universe had been easy, if not psychologically destructive. But discovering there were parallel universes within the parallel universe, that had been disorienting. There were so many. Worlds of the insane, the criminal, the dying, the diseased, the hateful, the innocent... these worlds existed alongside the parallel world, and they even resembled it; but they were not it, not even inside of it, really. She had been fooled, herself. She often wondered if there was a world where Alice in Wonderland was actually real. A world where tables could be clocks, faces could be flowers, caterpillars could smoke and mice had High Tea. She felt as though she might have a better grip on the planet if she only had a white rabbit to follow, instead of groping around in the dark, trying to find things that gave her direction, such as _eat me, drink me, _or _off wit 'is 'ead!_

Mopsy shrugged at this. He didn't know what she didn't know.

Bugger.

She began to apply makeup for work, looking at herself in the mirror. She bit her lip, before grabbing some racy crimson lipstick, a color that Shireen would have called Va-va-voom, and the Doctor in all of his leather would have chided her for being Barbarella for wearing. She applied it carefully, while Mopsy watched, eyebrow arched. _Painting the roses red._

Another interesting concept about living in a parallel universe inside of a parallel universe was that it was invisible to those who had never stepped inside of it, but once inside of it you could easily see the world you'd come from. This made it easy to fool you into thinking you were still inside of that world, it had fooled Rose. But once realized, all of a sudden one could see the world they'd come from like it was behind a veil; still mostly clear, but untouchable. Sometimes it looked huge and menacing, like it did for Rose - everything was sharp and spikey, ready to hurt her. Everything was scary, everything was about the fear of being discovered as someone who had lost themselves even though they knew exactly where they were - oh God, what if they knew? - and she was always seeing the world from her parallel world, looking into the one she'd left behind... scratch that, been forced into after leaving behind her world. Oh well. Every window on Alcatraz had a view of San Francisco.

* * *

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

Rose laid back submissively, counting the seconds while her arms were shoved unceremoniously through the straightjacket because she was known for being a fighter, a biter, a scratcher, and even a spitter, depending on who it was who was doing her treatments. She hated her doctor, he was Satan incarnate. She hadn't believed in that until she'd made it into the asylum, also known as the Dark Hotel. They were all guests, see? Guests. It was ludicrous, but it made the paperwork push through, which was the important part. On paper, all of these aliens were simply guests in Torchwood housing, and no one had ever thought to come by and see if it were actually otherwise. As Rose was put into the wheelchair to take her to her appointment, she looked up at Mopsy, who gave her such a sad, helpless glance. He wanted to help her; she wanted to help herself. She felt the strap coming around her torso to keep her in, incase she dared to try and fight. Gods above, she wanted to. But she had no choice her, she had no way of fighting any of this properly - she was so far into the basement of this place, she didn't think there was even a way out. They weren't above ground at all, they were actually deep under Torchwood One in the middle of London, where her father held no authority. But her father didn't even know about how she was being kept - he'd been told she was undercover on a mission, and as such couldn't be allowed to be contacted. She didn't know when they would give the final lie and say she was dead. She used to fear that, fear them killing her off like they did to some of the others in her ward.

_Used to._

"Mopsy," she whispered softly, pulling her imaginary friend's attention to her. As his head jerked, his hair flopped, revealing scared emerald orbs. He was as frightened as she was. "Be with me..." she closed her eyes, not needing to see his nod or hear him say he would be. She knew he would.

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

She was stopped by the nurse's station, staring around. She could hear some of the other patients who were watching TV, but they were catatonic - no longer a threat, so they didn't need to be watched as much. It would only be a matter of time, at this point, before they disappeared. The catatonics never stayed long. She was being rolled down the hall again, and she took time to glance around her. This floor was the nice floor, the floor tiles a shade of maroon with loopy designs on them so that they looked like a sixties throwback. The walls were all a shade of heavy cream but the doors were all metal, an unforgiving shade of gray that was a nice change from the dankness of the cells within. It was the most brightness they usually got, especially once the fluorescent lights were shut off for lights out.

Doris was humming softly, that bitch _would_ enjoy her job. She'd told them on many an occasion that they were no more than a paycheck to her. She was stopped by another room, while Doris chatted up a nurse Rose had never seen before. The sounds of retching from the other room made Rose's stomach tighten. She knew this place, now that she considered it; she felt damn fortunate that she was in here for _being_ an alien and not for being _in love_ with one. Although both were true, being a human being who had had sexual relations with an alien got you sent here for 'correction', similar to the way they used to 'correct' gay and lesbian people a long time ago... it was torture, it was disgusting. The poor girl in that room was being given aversion/conversion therapy - she was going through a form of hell that no one deserved. She could hear the psychiatrist talking to the young woman, showing her photos of herself and the alien she had fallen in love with, and knew that with each photo the crank was being turned on her IV. She was being given saline through the IV to keep her full of fluids, but the nausea-inducing drugs were also being pushed through the IV with each new photo, causing the terrible retching noises as she emptied what little was in her stomach until all that was left was dry heaving. Rose closed her eyes against the sobs, and could see Mopsy trying to cover her eyes as well, trying to shield her from the girl's fate while Doris chatted and laughed over some match that had been on the telly over the weekend.

Rose had read the file of a friend of hers who had been sent to the Dark Hotel, right when she'd begun researching into it, trying to find out what was going on under Alexis' direction. She had never trusted her, but finding out about the asylum had been absolutely horrifying. Gemini had been arrested for being in love with a female alien from the Silos galaxy, a lovely orange young woman who loved wearing the color silver and had proven to be nothing but loving to Gemini. Reading the file, she'd read that Gemini had been prescribed aversion/conversion therapy, masturbatory reconditioning, visualization, social skills training, psychoanalytic therapy, and spiritual interventions. This girl likely had the same. Rose was on the move again, thinking to herself that when she finally escaped, blowing this place up would be too good for it.

Doris pushed her down the hall, making a left, and continuing to hum. Rose could hear the echoes suddenly, of the dreaded record player in the psychiatrist's office. The ukelele music became haunting as it bounced off the walls, and Rose's fists clenched in the straightjacket, her nerves on a razor's edge. She didn't even have her pocketwatch, she felt even more lost to the world without the _sound_. The very sound kept her still on a world that felt like it spun too fast. The door was opened and she was pushed in, the man behind the desk covered by the large, fully opened newspaper in front of him. The music was blaring from the old record player, and Rose felt on the verge of tears already. She tried to steel herself against the inevitable attack, but she knew it wouldn't matter how much fight she presented - the man was a powerful telepath. Fighting would only serve to exhaust her further.

_Tiptoe through the window_

_By the window, that is where I'll be_

_Come tiptoe through the tulips with me_

Rose grit her teeth against the song, as Mopsy covered his ears in protest. The look on his face was disgusted, but he looked so nervous for Rose. She stared around the office - it looked just like a regular doctor's office, with the classy brown leather chairs, the red walls, mahogany bookcases filled with all sorts of books. Important, leather bound books - medical journals, important studies... if Hippocrates was there, she would laugh at the irony. Harm none, her hind foot. She stared at the desk, a gorgeous dark cherry wood desk that had his nameplate on it - _Dr. J.J. Chambers_. No pictures of family, nothing that made the desk personal in the slightest - his job was his entire life. She remembered meeting him, while she was still working at Torchwood. She hadn't even questioned how he'd known her name, or the fact he'd called her _Rose Tyler_, even though no one else was allowed to. She'd joked about whether he was married to his work, the way he'd done nothing but speak seriously about his job. His chuckle had given her a sense of foreboding, but she'd ignored it, continuing to work with him and the team. She looked down at the floor, the non-threatening creamy tile freshly polished. He still hadn't moved, with the exception of sighing in content while reading the newspaper. It was obvious to her, in this moment, that he was enjoying keeping her waiting, worrying, wondering what the hell he was going to put her through. He was the sort to enjoy the power he held, and she could almost feel his smile as it spread across his mouth. She turned and looked at Mopsy, who was staring at Dr. Chambers with a look of mistrust. He wanted to stand in front of her and protect her, but he couldn't.

She stared back down at the ground, her eyes closing.

* * *

"Rose? Have you fallen asleep?"

Who was that? Her eyes opened to a bleary sort of vision before she rapidly blinked it away. She was in a psychiatrist's office... _Julie's._ Why was she in Julie's office? Her mouth began moving of it's own volition, she was on automatic. Mopsy was across the room, giving Julie a scrutinizing glare... his Oncoming Storm face. Needed to gauge if we could trust her... could we trust her?

"Mopsy says...," Rose began, licking her lips slowly. She wasn't sure how comfortable she was with this - now that she knew that Mopsy wasn't real, that her mind had decided she couldn't live without the Doctor so it had invented him for her, in a perfect way so that he would be there and he wouldn't hurt to look at... the hows or whys eluded her. She didn't question it. But now she was speaking about Mopsy thinking and feeling, because good God, _he thought and felt_, he _did_. She was speaking about him knowing he was imaginary, to a goddamned psychiatrist. "Mopsy says that you're not allowed to tell anyone anything that I say here... he says that you can't tell anyone, even my parents, because I'm an adult and it's confidential."

Julie nodded slowly, not looking surprised to hear her discussing Mopsy at all. She just kept the same gentle look on her face that she always had, resting her fingers across her jawline and pursing her lips a bit. Her eyes were so compassionate, they made Rose _want_ to talk to her.

"Mopsy is right, Rose," Julie murmured, not getting into the fact that the paperwork she'd given Rose had all of that information on it. She trusted that Rose _needed_ Mopsy right now, and as soon as she was in a place mentally where she could handle things, Mopsy would become less and less necessary. "Would you like to tell me about what happened after we met last week, Rose? About why you ran out? I am very grateful you chose to come back and visit with me, but I want to hear about what happened. I feel I owe you an apology for my lack of foresight in our last appointment..."

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

Mopsy looked at Rose, gauging her reaction before reacting himself. He walked over to Rose, slowly, and sat down on the leather chaise, his thigh resting against hers. It felt cold, and his tweed made noise as it rustled, while he leaned against her. Rose continued staring Julie directly in the eyes, something lost about Rose's eyes... as though they'd never fully focus again. Mopsy leaned against Rose's shoulder, and she could feel his breath against her ear, hear his lilting accent as he whispered into her ear, his hand cupping her ear in order to do so, the back of his hand facing Julie. He whispered softly, never taking his eyes off her psychiatrist, as though he couldn't fully trust her, _and they couldn't_, he reminded her, softly.

_We can't trust her, we can only trust each other. You and I, Rose Tyler._

Rose nodded slowly, and spoke to her. "A lot of darkness...," she murmured.

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

Julie didn't ask for clarification, instead she re-engaged. "Rose... have you done things to injure yourself?" She spoke as gently as she could, but she felt the need to establish the seriousness of this situation. She was worried for the girl's safety as reality had already shown itself to be tenuous where she was concerned.

"...How do you mean?" Rose glanced at the pen she was writing with, Mopsy whispering in her ear to be careful.

_We can only trust each other, Tyler._

"I mean, do you find yourself doing things that cause you pain when you feel stress?"

_Don't tell her anything you wouldn't tell your mother, Tyler._

"I'm not certain I understand," she breathed.

"Honestly," Julie murmured, "It's not even anything as serious as trying to take your life, but anything you find yourself doing that hurts your body. Such as cutting yourself, with-holding food from yourself, wrist banging..."

Rose's head snapped up at the wrist banging comment. "Wrist banging... I thought I'd invented it..." she seemed genuinely surprised, and stared down at her wrists, which both had yellowing from a healing bruise. The yellow was darker on her right, showing she favoured the use of her dominant arm. Her nails were chewed to the quick, something Julie had written in her notes, keeping track of the girl's rising anxiety since she'd figured out that she had made up her best friend. "Sometimes I feel too airy. I feel like I can't hold onto anything... I wonder if I'm even real. I'm afraid, you see... do you think this universe is..."

Julie was watching her carefully while Mopsy frowned. He was nervous for her, she knew it. He wrung his hands before adjusting his bowtie nervously, and seemed to move them a lot as he spoke to her, as though his nerves just couldn't be contained. He was just bursting with mercurial energy, and she was never sure which he was - her own thoughts and feelings, as imaginary friends were wont to be; or if he was something different altogether, something that had taken on its own life.

"Do I think this universe is _what_, Rose?"

Rose stared down at her hands. _Empty, empty, so so empty; empty without your hands in mine. No matter the regeneration, they'll always be a perfect fit..._ Mopsy stopped flailing his hands and set his hand down on her thigh, lacing his fingers through hers and holding onto her hand. She could almost feel the cool, softness of his skin.

"Do you think this universe is trying to be rid of me...?"

She almost felt like she was disappearing, like her time was growing short. She kept counting the ticks and tocks, wondering if she should be counting down instead. If she did, from where should she begin?

* * *

Rose smirked, she couldn't help but to feel quite pleased with herself. The Doctor was a 900 year old alien who had the smarts to back all of that up, but sometimes he wasn't half thick, either. It seemed to just be their luck or his mouth, but for all that he claimed she was jeopardy-friendly, she strongly disagreed, and planned to let him know that this time. He'd gotten himself arrested, here on Supernena, even though he'd claimed to have landed them on a peaceful planet during a time of pure pacifism. Of course, being him, he'd been off by 450 years and had landed them in a time just after a war, the biggest one Supernena had ever known, where rules and guidelines had been set down hard to prevent another war. One rule was that any and all devices that could be used as weapons were strictly forbidden, and got you arrested. Rose smiled at the police woman, a young green humanoid who had bright red hair and reminded Rose of Poison Ivy from Batman.

"Someone is here, Doctor, to see about the rescinding of the orders for your arrest!" came the sound of another officer, from down the hall.

"Finally!" came the manic voice of her bestie.

"We've brought you something to eat in the meantime, here you are." the crinkling of what sounded like a paper bag echoed as she was informed of the rules and signed in.

She happily made it down the hall, keeping as quiet as possible so the Doctor wouldn't realize she was doing so. He probably thought the King had changed his mind about the arrest. _Fat chance._ Her boots didn't make much noise, and she smiled widely, wearing the same exact outfit that had gotten her called a 'wee naked child' and a 'timerous beastie' as though she knew what the hell _that was_. Did the Doctor even know, or did he make it up off the cuff? It sounded Scottishy enough. ...Scottishy. Oh Lord, the man with the gob that ate the Universe had her think-rambling!

Speaking of rambling, the Oncoming Babble was sitting on the wooden bench, straddling it really as it had no back, explaining the correct way to corral a nation post-war and why the banning of anything that could be used as a weapon got rid of important inventions like staplers when she made it up to the bars. He was just digging into what definitely now looked and sounded like a brown paper bag, grease marks all along it telling the tale that fast food hadn't changed much just because the star system was different. Was that a philly cheeesesteak? His back was turned to her, and she grinned, inhaling. _She was going to enjoy this._

"Well, well, well..." she said in a mocking, singsong tone of reproach.

The Doctor instantly winced, looking up as though in pain, and removed his hand from his bag of food. This had not been what he'd wanted at all. He rested his fist on his knee, and head head tilted down, eyes shut. The pained expression was quite glorious.

"Aw man..." he complained, getting up from the bench and leaving his food there, turning to face his companion.

Rose smirked wider, if possible, and put on a falsely pensive look, mouth quivering from trying not to laugh, eyes comically wide, fingers on chin. "My, my, my, my, my...!" she singsonged.

The Doctor frowned, and questioned, "What are _you_ doing here? I told you to stay with the handmaidens!"

Rose didn't let his pathetic earlier attempt to get her to stay put even bother her. "You know, I'll bet when you imagined us in this situation on this planet, you pictured yourself on the other side of these bars. Jeopardy friendly me and all." She couldn't help the jab, she swore she couldn't.

"Where's the King?" he questioned, ignoring her baiting him in that cavalier way he had.

"Hung up at the moment."

"Where's Lucilia?" Ah, mentioning the head of the handmaidens that he'd left her with, the one who'd pled with the Doctor to marry her and take her from this place, planting a kiss on him for all of his trouble. If he hadn't have flailed his arms so horrified and helplessly, Rose might've been jealous. But instead, she found it amusing how he had actively avoided Lucilia as though he was in first form avoiding a girl with a crush. She was necessary to their mission though, being as she was the true heir to the throne; they had been trying to get her to take back what was hers and set the timeline for this planet right.

"Organizing the candlelight vigil," Rose quipped.

The Doctor sighed, moving his glasses up a bit to rub the bridge of his nose. "Come on Rose," he plead, trying to sound like a tough guy but she knew he was ready to bust out his whinging voice at any moment. "I don't have time for this."

Rose looked at his prison cell and the bars, and murmured "Oh, I think you do."

He stared at her, mouth opening for a few moments, before he closed it and inhaled deeply. She had him there. He gave her a long look, resting his forearms through the bars.

"She fought the King for the rights to her throne and to being treated as a decent alien creature, citizen of this planet with bodily autonomy. The right for everyone to be so. So, as she and her group of handmaidens had everything under control, I took some of the money she'd offered me for giving her the family tree tapestry proving her birthright... good find, by the way... and came here to post bail for you."

He nodded a few times in understanding, the other alien in the cell looking shocked to say the least.

"But I can't post bail for you."

"Whyever not?" he squeaked, looking at her.

"On this planet, you don't become an adult until you're a hundred and forty five, so technically, I'm a minor."

He blinked a bit, ignoring the odd age of maturity, realizing he should have _known that_.

"Which means I have to give the money to my traveling partner, who is so far beyond _of age-"_

"Yes yes _all right_," he scowled, not in the mood for an age joke. Honestly, he was no spring chicken but he was far from _old_, at least as far as Time Lords had been concerned.

"Anyways, I have to give the money to the suspect, which I guess would be you-"

"Yes, yes brilliant, just give me the money," he muttered, giving her a wry smile.

"All right, but I want you to know it's coming out of your allowance." She murmured, tutting a bit.

"_Now_," he nigh on barked in a way he hadn't since he'd had a Northern drawl and a leather jacket on.

"Prison's hardened you," she teased with one of her tongue-touched wolf smiles, making him smile back at her.

"Can you please have the guard let me out of here?" he murmured, taking the money from her and glancing at it. It wasn't a credit stick, so he wasn't altogether certain... "Are you sure this is sufficient funds?"

"Yeah, yeah," she murmured absently, chewing on her bottom lip and making no move to leave. "By the way Doctor... I think it was a really cool thing that you did... finding her genealogy, like that...right under the King's nose, too."

He flashed her his trademark grin. "Thanks."

She sighed in mock regret. "I suppose I should prepare you for the things that've changed since you've been in the Big House..." she spoke on a sigh.

He turned and gave her a squinty-eyed glare, lips pursed, trying to hurry her along so she'd leave. She really enjoyed him eating crow a bit too much. It wasn't like he was a braggy sort, was it...? ...Best to ponder on other things.

"The TARDIS says... we have a _new_ Doctor _now_..." she looked to the side, a hand over her heart, lips trembling in a show of fake emotion.

_Oh for the love of Omega..._

He made a hand motion in the air as though batting away a fly, smirking and shaking his head at her. She flashed him another wolfsmile and off she went to get him out of jail. He made a mental note to never again be incarcerated without her right beside him.

* * *

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

Rose stared at a picture of herself, standing outside of Torchwood Three, in mid stride with members of her team not far behind.

"What's happening with these individuals, Rose?" Julie murmured, pointing at Owen and Ruby.

"They're quarreling... they _always quarrel,_" she murmured softly, looking down at her lap. Mopsy was holding her hand, playing with her right ring finger. She lifted it, and Julie's eyes stayed on her like a hawk's, watching for signs of her falling deeper into herself instead of pulling out of her shell, even a little bit.

"These two?" she questioned, pointing at Tosh and Ianto, who were laughing with each other.

"... Laughing...," Rose murmured. Julie smiled gently at her, nodding. She looked over the picture, it was easy to see that Rose was cut off from the group, incrementally so. It wasn't something that would have been readily noticeable to the others, it was something that had happened so slowly over the past year that those closest to her wouldn't have seen it until it was too late. Those closest to her were starting to notice.

"What about this woman right here, Rose," she said, making it less of a question and more of a statement. She set her finger right on Rose's spot in the picture, the look on her face solemn, at least four steps ahead of her team. Her hand was out as though holding someone else's, and Julie had an idea of whose that might've been. "What is she doing...?"

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

Rose stared at herself and frowned for a few moments.

"I know," Julie said with a smile used for encouraging unenthusiastic children. She was trying so hard to remain a place of safety for Rose. "How about you write down a bit of a story about that picture. What is that young woman doing in the picture?" Rose nodded and began writing with the pen and paper that she'd been given. When she was finally finished and handed her work to Julie, she stood up, getting ready to go. Rose was always counting the seconds, and she was more efficient than the clocks around her. Rose left without a word, as always. Julie sighed, and pulled her simply framed glasses up, around her neck via a gold chain that was small and elegant. It had cost a pretty penny, but working for Torchwood had left her quite well in the wages department. Now she almost felt guilty cashing her paychecks from the man who didn't realize how much his daughter needed help. She could see the woman drowning in front of her, and she feared her arm wasn't long enough to reach.

Upon reading the words on the page, her musings about the young woman's conditions all ground to a halt, and she could see exactly what was going on... she would have to change her tactics. She only hoped this depersonalization would not further. The clock chimed, telling her to reset her clock again. It was obviously slow.

* * *

_The woman in this picture is (pick one)_

_1. on a perilous journey from which we can learn much when she returns;_

_2. possessed by (pick one):_  
_ a) the gods_

_ b) God (that is, a prophet)_

_ c) some bad spirits, demons, or devils_

_ d) the Devil;_

_3. a witch;_

_4. bad, and must be isolated and punished;_

_5. ill, and must be isolated and treated by (pick one):_

_ a) purging and leeches_

_ b) removal of the uterus_

_ c) electric shock to the brain_

_ d) cold sheets wrapped tightly around the body_

_ e) Thorazine or Stelazine;_

_6. ill, and must spend the next seven years talking about it;_

_7. a victim of society's low tolerance for deviant behaviour;_

_8. sane in an insane world;_

_9. on a perilous journey from which he or she may never return;_

_10. lost..._

* * *

"Do you know who I am, Rose Tyler?" Doctor Chambers looked at her calmly, his hands in a contemplative prayer position, bouncing a bit in his chair, lips pursed. He looked full of himself. Her instant thought was _arsehole_, and she stuck by her gut instinct. She somehow knew this man was going to make what was going on even worse. He let out an annoyed breath at her silence, shaking his head softly. "I prefer your candor to a lack of speech, Ms. Tyler."

"You're Doctor Chambers. You're here to deal with my supposed issues."

"Your issues are _far_ from _supposed_, Ms. Tyler. You're in love with the Doctor."

She stared at him in shock. That was nowhere in her files, anywhere. She'd made certain. She hadn't told anyone anything, and they hadn't given her any form of truth serum. She was panicked, had she heard wrong?

"You didn't hear wrong. I know all about the Doctor, Rose Tyler."

Rose truly hated it when people called her by her first and last the way the Doctor would. It was one of her triggers, it would send her into a depressive, angry spiral if she let it. She grit her teeth, and murmured "Please don't call me that, Mr. Chambers."

"Oh don't call me _that_, I've earned my _doctorate_, Rose Tyler."

She began to control her breathing, the words rushing over her. Mopsy was glaring at the man, not best pleased at all.

"What should I call you then...?"

"Names are such a delicate thing, are they not?" he questioned cheerfully, a sharksmile on his face.

"Oh cut the bullocks..." she murmured, not best pleased with her treatment.

"I am Johnathan Chambers, J.J. for short..."

"J.J. ..." Rose murmured, making his lips twitch in displeasure. He obviously didn't like it. _Good_.

"You know, I know you better than you think I do, Rose Tyler," he chided, wagging his finger at her. Her eyes narrowed, she truly hated being spoken down to. She may be crazy, but she wasn't... well, she wasn't to be spoken down to by some _ape_. She could hear that word in her first Doctor's voice, and she'd been thinking it a lot more often of late. Ever since everything changed.

"Aren't we supposed to discuss feelings, make some sort of a breakthrough here?" she mocked in return, showing with her tone that she doubted his skills as much as she loathed being forced here.

"You want a breakthrough? I'll give you one," he said calmly, slowly standing up and walking around his desk to casually sit on the edge of it, staring at her. She was in pristine white hospital scrubs, the pants fresh from laundering. Her white shirt held the name of the institution, Torchwood West. It was always called the Dark Hotel, however, a name he held in high favor. It made everything so much more _poetic_.

"I'm waiting," she whispered, tersely. He loved how prickly she could be.

"The first time I ever spoke to you, I told you to "run!" and grabbed your hand, taking you down the hallway. Away from the Autons. I was supposed to leave you be after blowing up your job, but I simply _couldn't_. I fed you some line about having been looking for the arm, but I was only looking for the arm to find _you_.  
I knew it would be with you, you see. Clever, me." His words had shocked her, and she stared at him with a mixture of shock and hope, everything in her so ready to jump into his arms if he was truly the Doctor.

Time to bring her pain. He smiled wider.

"I have a story to tell you, Rose Tyler. It's about you and I. It's about how I lost you to this parallel universe, to Pete's World, due to my own insufficiency. I hadn't secured the other clamp properly, and you were the price I had to pay. But you stayed behind, and began to work for Torchwood," he murmured, and she nodded a bit. It was true, she had fallen in with Torchwood. "You began working on finding a way back. The people at Torchwood were eager to fill your selfish needs, because that kind of technology? Torchwood loves to control technological advances."

She blinked, staring at him. "What is a dimension cannon? What are you on about?!"

He shook his head in regret. "What does it sound like? A way to use technology to propel you between dimensions. You missed me. You wanted to find me. You wanted our future."

She had, she truly had wanted their future. But she had never worked on anything like that. She was a field agent, she saved lives. She had never been good at maths and sciences, until... well.

"As soon as I saw you in that alleyway, I ran to you. I couldn't believe my eyes, Rose Tyler, in the flesh."

She blinked a bit, and tilted her head to the side. She wasn't certain how to process this. The Doctor... but this man didn't look anything like the Doctor. Not that it was his regeneration that was the problem - it was the simple fact that when she looked into his eyes, she didn't see the galaxies and the stars that she saw when she looked into the Doctor's eyes. This man's eyes held something else. But he knew...

"What happened then...?" she whispered, as though speaking aloud would be too much. Would break the spell.

"I didn't make it to you. I got shot by a Dalek and that's when I was born... instantaneous metacrisis. We saved the world again, but there I was, the clone... the better half. The human half. The Doctor left us on a beach in Pete's World together, to live out two human lives together, just because I am a dangerous man. I ended things when he couldn't. I took care of it, I was a dangerous genocidal maniac, according to him. Pretty rich, coming from him." he scoffed, looking down at his fingernails.

So that explained it. He was a clone. He was a clone in a story that had never happened. Rose would have remembered unless...

"Are you from the future then? You shouldn't be telling me about the fu-" She paused at something he'd said about her, and he instantly knew which part had tripped her up.

"That was what was meant to happen. It didn't happen. You never made the dimension cannon. You never created it and jumped over to tell me of the stars going out. You stayed here, mired in pain. I was created anyhow, but the Doctor didn't have you to shove me off on. I was abandoned, Rose Tyler. So I had to go and find some regenerations. You see, I'd nicked Jack's vortex manipulator, and so I could travel through space and time. Traveling to a point where I could take another's regenerations wasn't easy. I regenerated once during such a dangerous journey. Hence why I look like I do."

Rose couldn't be hearing this. The Doctor... no. His clone. Apparently a human one. That's who he was. One who stole the very life from Time Lords?!

"You... you went back in time...? To when there were Time Lords, to steal?"

He grinned at her. It was not a nice grin. It was an affirmative.

"Then," he continued, "I have a story for you about trying to steal from myself. It'll really amuse you one day, how I defeated myself. But that doesn't matter. You will not call me the Doctor, for I am not him. I am the Valeyard."

Valeyard... that word sent shivers down her.

"Don't worry, I will never steal from you..." he tried to speak to her gently, but as he did, she felt something tickling her arm. She looked down, and saw a cockroach running up her arm. Then another, and another, until there was a whole swarm of them. She tried to shake them off, letting out a loud cry of shock and horror. They wouldn't stop crawling on her, not even the little ones. These were the large hissing cockroaches, and she began to scratch, trying to peel them off of herself. She shrieked in her chair, shouting at him for help.

"Get them off! They're all over me!" she screamed, raking her nails all along her arms until she drew blood, trying to get the creatures off of herself. He was laughing, enjoying her pleas.

"What is?" he questioned, and she lifted her arm to show him when she saw her arms were bare. There was no trace of any bugs on her, and instead her arms were covered in deep grooves, bleeding in some places.

"You... you did this...?!" Rose was shocked, and he was laughing at her, as though it was the most humorous thing on the planet.

"Blame, blame, blame. It's no longer important, Rose. You've already ruined things. Well, it's not _your_ fault, but of course it is."

"I don't understand!"

"You would if you would only open your mind!" he shouted, and Rose looked around nervously. She didn't need any more bugs. "You were meant to be my wife. Meant to belong only to me. You haven't learned yet, but you will, Rose Tyler. You will learn how to love, honor, and obey me. I'll teach you how to be the perfect wife, Rose."

She shook her head, and snapped "You may be a clone, but you'll _never_ be him. You're mad!"

"I don't take to being spoken back to very well, Rose. I don't like it."

"You never bloody did!" She retorted.

"No, I suppose I didn't," he murmured, re-crossing his legs. "But you need to realize, my love, that I am _not_ the Doctor. I am better than he is, and I will go back to him again. We will make it back to our original universe even if it obliterates this one. I will take all of his regenerations, and then the universe shall be mine to take..." he purred the last words out, as though they aroused him. Perhaps they did.

Rose had never heard a real life movie villain give a monologue, but she was certainly hearing it now.

She stared at him, wide-eyed, and he rested both of his hands on the arms of her chair. His face was close to hers, and she could feel his warm breath on her lips. She shuddered, and tried to pull away from the smell of cognac. He grabbed her chin and kissed her, softly on the mouth, even though she was fighting him, struggling against it.

He pulled away and began to kiss her tear-streaked cheeks, murmuring "You're so beautiful when you cry for me..."

* * *

Jack Harkness was having trouble sleeping. He sat at his desk at Torchwood, in the middle of the night, completely displeased. For some reason, he could feel something trying to grab onto him while he slept. He didn't like it, and began to go through some of Torchwood's files. He could always ask Tosh, but he didn't want to alert any of his team to a problem just yet; especially when he didn't know if it was an actual problem. It might just be him having been overworked lately, seeing shadows that simply weren't there. Ever since he'd seen the death list for Canary Wharf, he'd seen lots of shadows where they didn't exist. Finding out Rose was happy and still alive had alleviated that particular pain, for the most part. Now it just felt odd again. Something was walking over his grave. Glancing up at his computer screen, he saw that the screensaver was up. It said _Bad Wolf_ in large letters, and his eyes went wide. He blinked. Still there. Blinked harder, then palmed his eyes. It was gone - replaced by Torchwood One. _Fuck_. He needed sleep. He didn't even have enough energy to devote effort to getting laid, and tragically enough, couldn't even rub one out.

He walked over to his couch in his office and laid down, trying to take a bit of a kip, telling himself repeatedly that he was just shaken up ever since seeing Bad Wolf all over the place lately. The Doc had promised him that Rosie was alive and well in another universe, with her family, happy as could be. He'd snorted over that. Rosie, happy in a place without the Doc, and possibly him? Never happen. She was head over heels in love with the Doctor, she would never be able to be completely happy without him. But Rosie was gone and there was nothing he could do about it. With regards to the Bad Wolf everywhere... he was imagining it. When sleep finally claimed him, the amount of wrong he'd been struck him.

His dream was beginning well enough, he was thrusting into a Volenite he remembered meeting at a bar on Poosh, and had had a crazy tryst with. He didn't know where the other three had run off to, but he was satisfying himself with the non-gendered, female sexed one below him. It was going perfectly, he'd made them finish twice, and was now racing toward the finish himself, his fingers making divets in the seafoam green skin of the one beneath him. Just a little bit more... he breathed out in relief, eyes closed. It wasn't the greatest he'd ever had, it wasn't even good - through no fault at all of the one beneath him - his mind had just been preoccupied when he'd done this, been back to Poosh. He'd seen the Canary Wharf List, the names of the dead.

He could remember scanning the list, and finding the Tylers. _Tyler, Amber Renee. Tyler, George Kyle. Tyler, Jackie Andrea Suzette _ - oh no... Rosie's mother. He remembered how his mouth had run dry. The next name had made his heart shatter. _Tyler, Rose Marion._ No. No, not Rosie. Not his Rosie. He hadn't _told her yet._ He hadn't spoken to her, thanked her, forgiven her and _thanked her_. He'd thought of it as a curse but it'd been a gift given to him by the only woman who had ever genuinely loved him without him having talked her into bed. Or a couch, a wall, a pool, he was getting off topic. Not that he hadn't wanted to - God had he wanted to - but the fact she'd adored him _anyway_; without an orgasm being involved... it was the most genuine relationship he'd ever had with anyone.

He stared back down at the seafoam green Volenite, wanting to praise them but finding himself without a memory of their name. Suddenly, the lime green eyes went wide, staring behind him, and he could feel eyes boring into him. He whipped around, but saw no one, sliding out of the one underneath him. He slowly stood, and muttered something that resembled a thank you and 'You can see yourself out.' Not even mildly offended, he heard the Volenite do just that as he headed into the shower, the door clicking shut a comfort as he shut the bathroom door. Running his fingers along his face, he shook his head a bit and stared up at the mirror. It was already fogged, the words Bad Wolf written across the dewyness by what looked like a finger. It had been a while ago, as the words had a sickening water drip from them, reminding him of blood and as such, what he was there to try and numb himself against.

Swearing, he got into the large shower, the rocks along the side wall reminding him of a waterfall. He shut the glass door, looking around him. It was seven feet long, three feet across... no real _need _to be that long, but there it was. The rocks along the walls had a bit of moss to them for the effect of being in a cavern, and they were smooth, a soft purple just like the other rocks on this godforsaken planet. Why had he come here again? Oh yeah, the drink was strong, and the population was as casual about intercourse as he was. It was like shaking hands, _really_. But he just needed to forget about Rosie. The female Volenite who'd been the softest shade of seafoam had been his favorite... wherever she'd gone. He'd closed his eyes and imagined it was Rosie underneath him, the sound of her moans were so close to the way he'd imagined the blonde's would be, it had been so perfect. It had been like she'd _known_, too; she hadn't spoken. Only made the noises. It had made it incredible. He'd breathed out Rose's name more than once, he knew he had - damn if she wasn't polite, she'd stayed in the moment with him. He'd just needed to pretend, just for a while... just lie to himself. He needed the lie. Afterward, he'd tried to recreate it with the others but only felt hollow and had to struggle for the finish.

"So this is how you use your _gift_?" came the sound of a bitter toned voice. Bitter, angry, and so much like Rose Tyler's voice. He wanted to close his ears. That wasn't Rosie, her voice could take on anger, but never that way. She was light, love, happiness... it couldn't be own conscience _would_ take on Rose's appearance to try and coax him onto a better path. She was the only one he'd listen to.

"I gave you _life_, and you choose to remember me by seating yourself _balls deep_ into an alien you aren't even interested in enough to remember a _name_?!"

He grit his teeth against it. Rosie would _never _speak like that. Balls deep. Hah, one of many phrases that would never come from her lips. No, that was definitely him. Had to be. He just needed to suck it up and stop being such a twat. That was Owen's job. Don't let the pain of her loss and bitterness of years with abandonment issues by the two people he cared about most turn his Rosie into a nightmare for him.

"You should remember me by being out in the sunshine. I don't know sunshine anymore. I don't know rain. I don't know any of it, I haven't seen anything but four cement walls in so long I've forgotten what fresh air is _like_." The voice was venomous, near tears... angry with him. Righteously so. He whipped around, and what he saw ripped his breath from his lungs. It was Rosie... but she looked like nothing he had seen. Her hair was longer, to her mid-back, and a much lighter shade of blonde than he was used to; the wave to it confirming for him that she used a flatiron regularly. Her hair was twist dreading in a few places from a lack of care, and it looked like her hair was bloodstained. She was soaking wet... was that from the waterfall stream he was under? She was in hospital scrubs, a pair of stained white scrub pants and a shirt that had slash marks and bloodstains on it. Her arm had gauze bandages from her wrist to the crook of her elbow that was dark with blood, as though someone had neglected to change it for a long time, and she had multiple bruises all over her arms. Her nails were uneven... Rosie never let that happen, she carried a file on her everywhere... there was ripping in the cuticles, as though she routinely clawed and scratched at something as though her life depended on it. The bruises and lacerations along her neck... were those handmarks...? There was strange bruising on her temple... what was that...?! She looked so skinny, and pale, it was a nightmare, a shell of herself. The hospital bracelets on her wrists were indecipherable from this distance, and he couldn't breathe.

"R...Rosie..." he choked out, uncertain if that rasp even qualified as a questioning tone. "...Rosie...?"

Tears leaked from his eyes, mixing with the warm water that was already running down his face, obscuring his vision. Deep seated purple under her eyes, cracked, dried lips... she was dehydrated, her once pink mouth a similar shade to her skin, which was too pale to think of in between the bruising and dirt. This couldn't be real... it was a nightmare. Not real not real. The horizontal, bloody marks on her other forearm looked like scratches... and the blood under her jagged, uneven fingernails made it look... _self-inflicted_, his mind supplied.

_No, no no. No. _Whoever this sad creature was, she was not Rose. This was a nightmare he was having, out of his own fear and self-disgust over everything. His inability to get over what had occurred with the Master. This was... definitely not happening.

"It's happening..."

_Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up._

"No," she whimpered hoarsely, looking into his eyes through her own... wait. Her eyes were supposed to be brown. A shade of cognac that he'd teased her about while drinking the liquor. "No, I won't. I've finally contacted you... I... no, it's too soon. They're back... Jack... _Jack..." _

She was gone. He palmed into his eyes, hard enough to feel as he was doing it in real life and his dream. He was waking up. His palms were wet, his forehead too... sweat and tears. This nightmare had been the _worst_... his hair stuck to his forehead, and he felt out of breath. He sat up, no longer wanting to get any form of rest. He just needed a stiff belt to forget all about that nightmare... it had felt so _real_... upon sitting up, he glanced up at the large mirror on his wall, and saw it fogged up, the words Bad Wolf written across it by a finger.

* * *

Rose was screaming, fighting against the orderlies who were taking her down the hallway in a straightjacket. She shouted pleas at them, trying to get them to just _let her go_, after all, she hadn't _done anything wrong_ and couldn't they bloody see?! _Couldn't they see that it was Dr. Chambers who was crazy?!_ Doris walked calmly behind, rolling her eyes at the entire situation. It was something she had heard before a million times, and honestly, with what she was being paid, she couldn't care _who_ the crazy one was. Her checks cleared every two weeks. Rose fought, in tears, screaming at Doris to just listen to her, and calling out for someone named Mopsy. Doris nodded at the orderlies, and they dropped Rose unceremoniously on a table.

She looked around, whimpering in fear. "Where am I? Doris _please_, _please just listen to me_, you don't understand he's an alien, Doris! He's a bloody Time Lord and he's _crazy_!"

Doris raised an eyebrow at Rose, as she was once a Torchwood agent as well. She had a raised eyebrow, a look of disbelief on her face. "Rose, he's been screened already. He is human, he has double helix DNA, he passed all of our tests. Stop being _difficult_."

"He lied, he got around it somehow! He's clever, Doris!" she shouted, raving because she was so frightened she couldn't begin to censor herself. "We were friends once, you and I! Doris, _please!_"

She looked up, and saw two prongs placed on either side of her temples. Oh god. Oh god no. She struggled more, but she was being held down by the two orderlies, losing the ability to fight back. Her body just wouldn't cooperate, it was tiring out.

The Valeyard was whistling cheerfully, the song _Tiptoe Through the Tulips, _as he was walking down the hallway to the electroshock therapy room. He smiled down at Rose, leaning down and nuzzling noses with her. She tried to bite him, snarling in anger. He used her open mouth to shove a rubber mouth guard in, wagging his finger at her playfully.

"You're never going to trust me, Rose Tyler... never, ever, ever. How can we be together if you don't trust me, Rose? We simply can't." he shook his head in mock disapproval, but it was obvious he was enjoying this. She could hear him clicking about with a machine, humming to himself. She struggled a bit against the orderlies, but they were too strong while she was in a straight jacket, it didn't matter about biology or Torchwood training.

"Do you know the treatment we give to telepathic beings, Rose Tyler? It's the same treatment we give to beings that are in a sexual, or mated relationship with telepathic beings..."

She looked up at the machine next to her, tears leaking from her eyes. There was no way out of this. None. They were stronger than she was, more skilled in holding down the guests here. She heard him click the machine on, the humming able to be felt even on the table. She could feel the power into the air, and she prayed in that moment that she wouldn't be as alone as she felt. Mopsy was staring at her in horror, trying to speak to her, but she could hardly hear anything over the sound of her own blood rushing in her ears.

"We have to scramble the brain. Can't let them use their thought powers against us, now, can we? Perhaps once your mind is scrambled, you'll be a good little wife for me... at least you'll fight me less..."

She shouted something through the mouth guard, making him laugh at her, before he clicked the button, nd she screamed as pain laced through her entire being. Her mind was in so much pain, and her body seized, the orderlies holding her down quite effectively as she screamed against the electrocution. It felt as though it was taking hours, and her eyes squeezed shut.

When her eyes opened, she couldn't hear the buzzing of the machine anymore, she could only hear the chirping of birds, and explosions that rocked the facility she was in. She looked up and saw cherry blossoms, soft and pink, floating through the air. They were coming from the roof, the holes in it providing a way for the petals to enter what appeared to be a broken down cathedral. She reached up, the explosions sounding so near and so far at the same time, and caught sight of her own hand - nails freshly manicured, and a strange silver bracelet on her wrist. She pulled her hand back down, looking at the bracelet. Two charms on it, they were bigger than most charms would be; heavier. One was a beautiful rose, carved in such a way that it could have been real; even the petals had the markings on them. The other was a wolf, which made the words _Bad Wolf_ run across her mind. She was in battle gear, what appeared to be a modern re-styling of an older uniform. She had her hair back in a military bun, a small airman's cap off to the side. She wore a military style zip-up in a shade of olive, zipped up just enough so that one was able to see her black tank top underneath. Her pants were more complicated; a black pair of short- shorts with fishnets underneath them, and a pair of the olive military pants over them, but they had many holes in them. She couldn't decide if they were better fashion or function, glancing down; but either way she was more comfortable than one could expect. Her combat boots were tight and supportive, not digging the fishnets into her skin like she would have thought they might. Had she dressed herself?

No... She heard crunching, the sounds of concrete and wood grinding from someone's steps.

Whipping around, she saw her first Doctor, with his big ears and Roman nose. He was in a different outfit, an old style military outfit that matched hers, looking like a general. He was in all olive, and where her outfit had sex appeal, his had extra leather (he _would_). His combat boots crunched in front of her, extra layers on him that reminded her of her Second Doctor more than anything, and he stared at her fondly.

"All right Rose, we have work to do. You still my best girl?"

"..." She wanted to hold him, to kiss him, tell him she missed him more than _anything_, but she had to answer his question. "Of course."

"Good. Now, the mission is simple. We have Dray'gans out there, an alien people who the mythos of dragons were based off of. They look exactly like the dragons, and yes, before you ask, St. George actually _did_ slay one. Leave it to humans to think there's a supernatural creatures on the planet instead of realizing they're being invaded. Stupid apes," he murmured, fondly.

She grinned widely at him, knowing she should rake him over the coals over the apes comment, but she just couldn't. "What's the mission, Doctor?"

"There are two Dray'gans out there, and we have to retrieve them. We can't let these Earth military people get a hold of one of them as a specimen, they'll test on them and torture these poor creatures. We have to help them get out of this battleground. Rose, I don't want to leave you, but I have to watch over you from above. I'll be in the copter, I need you to be below, get to the Dray'gan and I'll be with you momentarily. I have something to handle here."

She nodded, looking down at the ground for a moment. It felt like he was saying goodbye all over again just from telling her he was separating from her.

"Don't worry," he murmured, his hand touching her shoulder. "I'm leaving you with a capable battalion, and I promise, my eyes will be on you from above the entire time. I _will never_ let anything happen to you, Rose. Not to you."

She smiled, and bit her lip. "What if the worst happens? What if I get captured, and you can't make it to me? What if they capture me, Doctor?"

His face looked grim, and he grabbed her wrist, holding up the bracelet. "Only use this if they capture you. Biology can be used against you, and they cannot have the miracle. The rose charm is a poison. It will work fast, Rose. Very fast. The wolf charm is the antidote. You'll know what to do. But using it won't be necessary. As I said, I have my eyes on you," he breathed, and she nodded, before hugging him tightly.

The hug felt like it lasted forever, but nowhere near long enough.

Rose walked off, down the battlefield, into the trenches, marching with a large group of soldiers to find the Dray'gan and bring them back. She heard the explosions and felt them rocking the ground underneath her feet while she was walking amongst the men, all looking battleworn and bruised, reloading their guns and fighting for all they were worth to protect alien life. She turned her head to the side and her vision cleared.

The Valeyard stood on the other side of the room, looking at her with narrowed eyes. He smirked, and walked over to the machine again, clicking the button again. Pain pierced her mind again, and she screamed through the mouth guard, her world fading again.

She was in the middle of a snowy battlefield, but it was abandoned now, the sounds of the chopper behind her cutting in through the air with a _whip, whip, whip, whip_ noise. She was crying, seeing one of the Dray'gan, a large red one around the size of a VW van, wings flapping in the air, leaning down against the thick ice. It was so thick the Dray'gan couldn't get through it, the lake water underneath unable to be reached.

"What does it want?" a soldier asked, and Rose had a strange feeling she knew.

She ran over to the ice, ignoring the shouts for her safety, and began to swipe away at the snow on top of the ice. She could see it, the female of the mated pair was underneath, struggling to get through, trying to get to her mate.

She felt hands on her, yanking her backwards, away from the angry, aggressive male. It was the Doctor, holding onto her and pulling her back into the chopper while the soldiers began to try to corral the Dray'gan.

"NO! NO!" Rose screamed, her mind running back to when she was struggling against the wall, freshly in Pete's World on a permanent basis. She could have sworn she felt the Doctor on the other side, she swore she'd heard his breathing.

"Rose, there's nothing we can do. That ice is impenetrable, she may as well be in another universe, Rose..."

"She's _drowning! _Without him, she's _drowning_! Doctor she can't _breathe_, she can't!" she screamed. She fought him all the way to the chopper.

When her eyes refocused, she was in her padded room, still in a straightjacket, humming a song that she swore the Doctor was singing to her... or was it the TARDIS? She'd been tossed unceremoniously back, and she couldn't focus a thought to save her life.

* * *

The Torchwood team was dealing with the last of the hostiles, arresting them and turning them over to the Shadow Proclamation, who actually _did something_ in this universe, one of the few positives that existed here. Who cared? Their chips tasted like shit. She snorted, giving Mopsy a look out of the corner of her eye. He smirked lightly, drumming his fingers on his forearm. She sighed softly, looking over at where Owen Harper and Ruby Storm were in yet another snit. Well... snit was such a _strong word_, it was more like Ruby casually baiting him with all the grace of a master of games, and Owen losing his mind. She could see the steam about to come out of his ears, which amused Ruby to _no end_. She wondered, off-hand, if Ruby did it on purpose because she loved pissing him off, or if she did it because she wanted him some other way and felt the need to punish him for it. Either way, the time and the place was not now or here, and Rose rolled her eyes as she walked over to the main computer, looking at the three techs who were punching away at the keys, making certain of the battle plan.

They'd agreed to help Mangalores, who were not necessarily an ally, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend. They had created a temporary alliance for getting rid of the Daleks found infesting some of the outer planets of this system. Rose had accepted the mission the instant it had hit her desk, not even needing to be told what the mission was about. The word - _Dalek_. She wished that she could still be that girl who had stood there, teary eyed, in front of the Doctor, asking him what he was becoming as he held that gun, ready to take the life of a Dalek that wasn't even a true threat. He had seen so much destruction, and devastation in his life, so much of it caused by those little metal pepper pots bustling about... secretly, she'd always thought that the little part that shot the laser kind of looked like it's penis. She tried to fight it, but an amused grin stole across her mouth and Mopsy's lips twitched. He tried to fight the smile, but it was kind of amusing to think of these aliens destroying people via their... oh Christ, could she stop already. _What the hell am I doing? _She must have needed the amusement, and Mopsy had a case of the church giggles.

"Commander, we need you to look over these scans... there appears to be something in Sector Five..."

Rose ran down the cement stairs toward the hangar, the cement stairs making the heels of her boots clack against them. She didn't care about being quiet, she cared about the little girl who had run down here. _Petunia_, she was so little. Rose had met her earlier with her father, the General. She was a mix, between the human General and a Mangalore female named Disé, the dark purple of the mother's skin mixing with the pallor of the ginger haired man, creating a lovely shade of lilac for the girl. She was only four, and her maroon hair was in a Princess Leia style bun on both sides of her head, tendrils of hairs falling out of them framed her face. She'd been laughing, singing in a language Rose hadn't known, but Mopsy had nodded his head to the beat, lips pursed. Easily impressed, Mr. Impressive was. Now she was down there with the hostiles, and Rose was running before thinking. She couldn't think, it was a _child_, and Mopsy agreed with her.

She could hear Petunia yelling "Da! Da!" she was calling to her father. What happened? How had she been taken? Rose had barely made it past the first ship when gunfire exploded through the air, the amount of time between each shot so short it was obviously a machine gun. She felt a shock of pain, seven of them, and heard Mopsy yell her name. She heard the sounds continuing and felt herself hit the ground, hard. It was painful, the shock of it. She'd been shot. Her ears were ringing, and she blinked her eyes, hard, glancing up in time to see the return fire, hearing her name echoing off the walls. Sounded so far away. So far. She closed her eyes again, and could see herself as a baby, looking up at the Doctor while her nineteen year old self knew she had fucked up, and just didn't want to admit what a horrid idea it'd been... she could see herself as a young child, between the ages of six and ten, having to be the parent of her single, widowed mother. Her mother had been an alcoholic, and as a child she hadn't been able to tell which was better - when her mother was drunk, and she was at least _funny_, even though she drank all the money and at times all that Rose had had to eat was the condiments in the fridge; or when her mother was sober - crabby, emotionally and verbally abusive, but the house was clean and there was food to eat.

She felt like she had a childhood split between ketchup sandwiches and cleaning up vomit while the television set gave her love and acceptance; and a childhood filled with her mother telling her repeatedly what a loser she was, and that she should just shut the fuck up about her ideas because _her father_ also had ideas, and _look how well those turned out_. "Don't you put on airs, Rose Tyler, you're absolutely nothing, you came from nothing, never will be anything so I don't know why you act like you've got the smarts God gave a gnat!"

Then when she was twelve, she'd run into this strange man while she was walking. It was Christmas Eve, and she'd been looking in every pub for her mum, but she simply couldn't find her anywhere. Rose had given up hope when a strange old man stood, staring at her. He looked like a strange grandfather, but for all she knew he could have been a creeper, and that had been the last thing she'd needed. They'd ended up striking a conversation, and he'd turned out harmless enough. He'd just come from a war, and told her she reminded him of a friend of his, someone who'd been there for him _the moment_ he'd needed her. She didn't know why he'd used such emphasis on that, but apparently she'd been quick or something, she didn't know. Either way, in the end, he'd asked her what she wanted for Christmas. She'd laughed and told him she wanted out of this hellhole.

"Now, that's not nice for a young girl to say. Hellhole. Surely, things can't be so bad here."

"I'd rather be in a completely different galaxy than here, mate."

His eyes had twinkled, and he seemed sad for a minute. Great, she'd made an old, lonely veteran pity _her_. God, she felt like a tool. She suddenly changed her answer.

"A bicycle... one of the tough girls from the neighborhood stole mine." She confessed, and bit her lip.

After they'd said goodbye, she had kind of hoped to see him again. She never did. But damned if there hadn't been a bicycle under her tree the next morning.

Her mum's drinking had lead Rose to follow Jimmy Stone... leaving her drunken mother and that awful flat had been easy. Leaving it for a physically, emotionally, and mentally abusive older man who had taken advantage of a teen girl from a broken home had proven a year's worth of a painful lesson. They'd only had sex a handful of times because he'd gotten bored and moved to simply cheating on her with every girl he'd found - both times having sex with him had lasted about thirty seconds, and he was no giver. When she'd told him, finally, that she was done... he'd tried to kill her, choking her and bashing the side of her head into the wall.

She'd called Mickey before the confrontation, and Micks had saved her life. He'd gotten into a fight with Jimmy without even having to be asked, and the drunken tit had fallen quickly. It was hard, filing charges against him. But having her day in court had been soul-cleansing. She'd been able to stand there, in front of a jury, an audience, a judge, point at Jimmy and say "He did those things to me. He hurt me, he tried to kill me, he beat me. Him, it was _him_!" and be _believed_, instead of the gaslighting that Jimmy had done. Mickey had begun dating her just to give her the experience of a relationship where she was cared about. Something gentle. But to Rose, it had felt like they were just enhanced friends. He'd tried to seduce her a few times, but she had never been into it. She'd tried, for him... but saying she wasn't ready instantly made him stop. He respected her so much and had made her feel so safe. The Doctor had made her feel even safer.

* * *

There had been times where she'd heard her mum's voice in her head while travelling with the Doctor... 'You can't do it, you aren't capable, you think you can do these fantastical things but you _can't_, Rose!' and it made her hesitate... but the Doctor made her better. He'd made her see that she _could_. That she _should_. That she was a capable creature and was in no way any less than any other human. Rose had fallen so deeply in love with this alien who was so much better than she was. So much more advanced, so much more knowledgeable... she was just a dropout who hadn't been very good in school to begin with. She could still remember her casual answers to teachers who had only been trying to help her.

"_Did you do your homework, Miss Tyler?"_

"_Thought about it. S'the thought that counts, ain't it?"_

"_I am not going to put up with lip from that prissy bitch!"_

"_ROSE TYLER! If you call Miss Allen that word once more, to the Headmaster with you!"_

"_...Bitch."_

"_MISS TYLER-"_

"_I'M GOING!" and the door slamming repeatedly before she'd just walked out of school, not bothering with the Headmaster._

_Losing her virginity to her tutor for science... her tutor who looked exactly like Mopsy... looked like, sounded like, laughed like... he sounded just bloody like him... how..._

"_You're supposed to be a tutor." It was a statement and a question._

"_I am, yes."_

"_Supposed to be smart, are ya? Wif that prissy accent on ya?"_

_He bristled. "I am."_

"_Eatin' fishfingers dipped in custard ain't too smart there."_

"_Says the young woman who has never tried it before. Not every delectable food is haute cuisine, Miss Tyler."_

"_Think you're quite impressive, you do."_

"_I know I'm impressive."_

_It had only been a few days, but they'd begun talking about personal things. It had felt like he'd goaded the conversation toward personal purposefully, as though he had an invested interest in her. It felt like she already knew him. He was always encouraging her, telling her how clever he thought she was, and treating any correct answers she gave him as though she'd handed him the moon and the stars. She had never been treated that way before, as though she was smart and what she said actually mattered. It had made her study for a test, and when she'd passed with a 76% (instead of her usual failing grade) he had been thrilled, going over the test with her as long as she'd needed until she fully understood. _

_Once she'd talked about Jimmy Stone seeming interested in her, something about it had upset him. The end of the week, he'd made her late to see Jimmy, not even by accident, not that she'd minded. He'd taken her hard on the desk, and had made some comment about how he'd only expected to help her with her homework._ _He'd touched her like he couldn't get enough of her, meeting her eyes with looks that ranged between disbelief she was real and emotions that he simply __**couldn't**__ feel for her. He barely knew her! _

_He was gone the next day - one of the faculty members had said he'd been fired for breaking a propriety rule. She'd lost it without him, her drive to even care about school. The one person who'd made her believe she could be anything and do anything had left. Quitting school over Jimmy had been easy. She'd lost faith in herself and the system that had lost her through the cracks long ago._

* * *

She heard the yells, the fight was still going on... how many seconds had been lost by a flashback. How many... she'd not been sure.

Learning to get a job and to live with her newly sober mother had been so interesting... her mum had become someone she'd liked, and her mum felt like they had more of a friendship than a mother and daughter relationship, but it had felt good... even if sometimes the old resentments came up. Like when her mum had attempted to exert authority over her a few months ago over her moving on from the Doctor... old resentments, old wounds. Some things couldn't heal proper. But the day she'd met the Doctor had been glorious. She'd woken up at 7:30, aka the arsecrack of bloody dawn. She'd gotten dressed in a flash, gotten off the bus and onto Henrick's, which was having a sale. That was terrible news, it meant she'd be on her feet all day putting up with angry people who wanted their items _now, right now_ and there was nothing she could do about it other than give service with a smile. She was finally able to unscrew that pasted on smile for lunch with Micks, who was still so much her best mate. He was no boyfriend. He deserved better. They'd laughed by the fountain, throwing things at each other and horsing about. Just one quick, chaste kiss had been all she'd given, and he hadn't even been upset by it. It was like two siblings, dating. Scared to let each other go but unable to experience any intimacy at all really... no intimacy, no desire, no burn, no need for each other. Nothing. She'd often felt guilty of robbing him of someone who had actually _wanted him_, and had told him so every time she'd said no to sex with him. He'd been so gentle and understanding, after the fourth denial, he'd just kissed her on the head.

"It's not your fault babe, I'm pushin ya," he'd said with that damn gentle tone. "I won't try anymore, I'll wait for you to come to me, yeah?"

She never had. She never would.

Off to take the lottery money to Wilson. Then the Autons, and _Run_, and... the Doctor. He'd shown her he had an explosive, and was going to blow the place up. She'd of course thought he was full of it, and had run off outside.

That's when it'd hit her, on the street. _Oh god, I just left this nutter in the shop, after hours, and he's got a troop of weirdos mucking about dressed like plastic people... I'm going to be sacked! They've me on film, helping him about and leaving him there! I'll be sacked for certain!_

As she'd gone to run back, the building had exploded. _I'm not going to be sacked... because I'll be too busy being in prison! I'm going to JAIL. _She could have cried.

* * *

Everything leading up to when she'd finally looking into the Heart of the TARDIS for him. It all flashed by in little golden flashes, and then there she was. The door had closed, and she had been staring right into the beautiful golden heart. She could hear singing... a beautiful song. Words. Chiming words. What were these words? She didn't know the words. _Gallifreyan_... something whispered across her mind, and suddenly she could understand the chimes.

"_What do you want? Do not lie to me, for I see into your very essence."_

"_I want to help the Doctor."_

"_Help what?"_

"_I want to save him. I need to save him."_

"_Why?"_

"_Because I love him. Because I need him. The Universe needs him."_

"_What will you be willing to give?"_

"_...Give?"_

"_Everything has a cost, Rose Marion Tyler."_

"_I will give anything to save him."_

"_Your heart."_

"_Yes."_

"_Your body?"_

"_Yes."_

"_Your soul? Your mind? If I needed to rip your skin from your bones, crush your soul, destroy you, wipe you from existence..."_

"_Anything you need. Anything for him. Anything. Just... one request."_

"_...I'm listening."_

"_Let him find someone else... let him find someone... someone like him. Let him find another of his own kind, if there is anyone... please, give that to him. He deserves absolution. He deserves to not ever have to be alone. Never again. He shouldn't be alone."_

"_...Another of his own kind... that, Rose Tyler, can be done."_

"_I'm ready to be wiped from existence now, any way you see fit. Just please save him."_

"_...The will of the Universe shall be done."_

* * *

She hadn't understood what that had meant, but she had suddenly been filled with the entire power of the Vortex, and it had stayed in her body, screaming through her blood, singing in her mind, rattling her teeth and prickling her skin while she floated horizontally in the air. It was as if there was no gravity in the TARDIS any longer. She'd existed, swimming through the nebulae she could see in her mind. The atoms that made up everything ran across her like silk. She'd finally made it to the Doctor, and upon sight of him, things had instantly clicked. They clicked in her mind again. She could see every regeneration the Doctor had ever been. She could see every regeneration he would ever achieve. She stared at the next one, a man with wild brown hair and a larger propensity for talking. The one right after him had kept her attention for a few more precious moments, and now she could understand why. It was Mopsy. Mopsy was truly the Doctor, the Doctor was Mopsy... wait. The Doctor had taken her on a desk. That wasn't right, was it? It was.

The entirety of her memories continued, until she felt too weak for anything more. Mopsy stood over her, but she could only barely make him out. Her mind was fading. Her entire being was giving up. She could hear Owen's panicked voice yelling at Ruby.

"...Two shots pierced her heart... can't get them out... bleeding out..."

"FIX HER!"

"Nothing... do... "

"Worthless... git... not even... Rose!"

"Rose...," Owen's voice. She looked up at him, blearily, unable to form words with her trembling mouth. Her ears were ringing.

_The Valiant Child who shall die in battle._

"Rose, I'm applying pressure to stop the bleeding, we're going to try and save you. Okay? I'm sorry if it hurts."

"It..." she croaked out. "It doesn't hurt..."

"Rose, don't speak, honey. Come on Boss, don't lose your energy." His voice was firm, firmer than it had ever been.

"No... Owen it doesn't... it doesn't hurt..." she stared beyond him, at Mopsy, who looked anguished.

"Rose..."

"It doesn't hurt anymore...how long... are you gonna stay with me?" she whispered the last part, and Owen gave her a quizzical look, mouth bobbing open and shut, uncertain of how to answer that.

Mopsy stared at her in the eyes, taking her hand, and he whispered, "Forever."

At that word, her body released, finally going completely limp in the medic's arms. There was a large puddle underneath her, back sticky from the blood coming from the exit wound, and Owen was shouting for her to come back. Ianto sobbed her name, tucking her head under his chin and let the tears finally come, rocking her back and forth. His face was covered in smudges from the fight, a bit of blood from people near him being shot, and he remembered why he avoided field work. He just sat there, rocking her back and forth, trying not to think about it.

"She's gone," Owen murmured, and Ianto let out a choked noise, turning away. He couldn't hear that right now. Especially not from Owen. He should have defended her better from the other man. Her mental illness had made itself obvious, and he should have shouted down the other man, told him he was an arsehole. Told him to shove off. Sacked him, himself. She had told him she'd felt alone. How had he contributed to that? Had he reached out to her, as he should have? No. So he did the only thing he could. He held her in death as he should have in life. She'd deserved a friend. She'd combatted her mental illness to try and defend them and protect them, even died to protect a _child_.

Ruby glowered, and hissed. "Check again."

"I've already checked her pulse, Storm, there's nothing else I can d-"

"Check it again, you must be _wrong_!"

"I CAN COUNT TO ZERO, RUBY." he screamed, finally exploding.

Rose Tyler was dead.

* * *

"I won't _have this_, Rose. Not from you. Never from _you,_" the Valeyard snarled as he dragged her down the hall by her hair and one arm. She struggled, crying out in pain and terror from being chased so far. _No, she'd been so bloody close to making it to the elevators and getting out..._ and he yelled for an orderly. Rose fought harder, yanking against her hair, making some of it pull out, but she was in too much fear for her life to truly feel the pain. She bit him in the arm, hard as she could, feeling the skin break and tasting the blood coming between her teeth. He yowled in pain, and threw her down, making her head hit the linoleum with a sickening _thwuck_ noise. She lay there for a moment, dazed; she could hear him cussing up a storm in Gallifreyan. It sounded like echoes down the hallway, and her pulse was resounding in her ears. She could see stars in her vision, but she struggled up while he was yelling for orderlies, and started running as best she could down the hallway. She was going in a zigzag pattern, trying to get away, but her feet just couldn't seem to cooperate.

_Come on you stupid body, __**work!**_

She'd made it down another hallway, and could hear people yelling after her. Whose voices were those? They all seemed to jangle around her brain, bouncing off the walls, leaving the lonely echoes as her mind sluggishly tried to identify the other prisoners this hellhole was holding captive. She had just made it toward the laundry facilities when she was grabbed around the middle, hard, by an orderly who was built like a linebacker. He sacked her against the unforgiving brick wall, and her head clucked with it again. She kept struggling, ignoring the way her sight was blackening. She was like an animal, biting and kicking, fighting to get away from these predators. They were taking her _back_, back to the _worst predator of all_, and they didn't even care. She screamed when she felt the quick burn and sear of a syringe in the skin just above her buttock, the only place they were able to tag her. She bit again, hard, and raked her nails down one orderly's face before her wrists met an unforgiving, bruising grip. She was losing control of her ability to move her own body.

"Nooooooo!" she wailed loudly, tears streaming down her face, but she hadn't even realized. _How long had she been crying?_ She kept struggling, but her struggles were becoming weaker, and the vice grip on her was becoming stronger.

A cheerful whistle that echoed off the walls made her blood run cold.

No. Not him. No.

He stroked her face just as the ability to fight left her, the sedative relaxing all of her muscles. She was left twitching, staring at him.

"You look so beautiful when you're afraid of me," he murmured. "But even afraid, so filled with fire. That's my Rose, in all of her splendor. I believe you truly _would_ fight me to the death but there's no need. I told you. Love, honor, and obey. Perhaps we need to cement that lesson?"

* * *

_She had been so close to escaping. She'd been hiding in the shower room, trying to make it out of there. She closed her eyes, trying to control her breathing, but she had yet to learn this art. Looking around the room she had entered, she saw the mixed tiles all over the floor and walls, strange shades of taupe and tan that could only be found in a bathroom. This was the shower room, filled with stalls that only made it up to the girls' hips, for some form of modesty. It always reminded her of when she was in school, after phys ed. For right now she was listening, hearing the sounds of footsteps. The steps were just down the hall, and she ran as quickly as she could, making it across the room and hiding behind one of the stalls just as the door opened._

_Closing her eyes and forcing her breath to even, she heard the measured footsteps and the snick of the heavy metal door shutting. Her hand was trembling, the one holding the scalpel, her one defense against him. The silver glinted a bit in the light of the moon coming through the barred windows, making her duck her hand down further. Nothing to alert him to where she was. She glanced around the room, letting her observations bleed into her mind, trying to suss out a way to get out of this closed room. It was never ideal, running away from a pursuer into four closed concrete walls, but she was in a place filled with closure and walls. She had to get out._

_Suddenly all of the showers turned on, the water freezing. She made a sound against her will, before clapping her hand over her mouth, feeling the burn of tears in her eyes. No no no. Anything but this. The sound of his whistle made it worse, cheerily whistling the tune from his record player._

_**Oh, tiptoe from the garden_

_By the garden of the willow tree_

_And tiptoe through the tulips with me**_

"_"You can try and hide from me all you want,"" he said in a singsong tone, sounding further away from her. This gave her the warmth of hope in her chest, the fight or flight instinct telling her to move. But the problem is that I have far more experience than you. You've never been taught, you're just trial and erroring...not a good way to live."_

_He sounded so far away. She slowly peeked her head up, trying to see where he'd gone off to, see if it was safe to run for the door. She couldn't see him anywhere, and backed up a bit out of the shower stall, still crouching. She ran into a solid pair of legs behind her. Her entire system froze up with fear, and before she could make a move, her hair was in a vice-like grip._

_"Hello my little pink and yellow." His voice was breathy, as though he'd been holding his breath so she wouldn't be able to hear._

_She was dragged out of the stall and her scream echoed through the shower room, and down the hall._

* * *

"Now what to do with you..." he murmured, patting her hair.

She blinked a bit, and her eyes widened. She had passed out, re-running how she'd made it to the shower room but it had been no use. She hadn't escaped him. She was back in her straight jacket, she realized, and she was freezing cold. Her skin stuck to the floor, and not in a good way either.

She was inside of a giant freezer, she realized, among different food stocks... she struggled against the bindings, but it was no use and she knew it.

"Why... why am I here?"

"You'll be here for a while. I figured the silence might help you to contemplate how much nicer to me you should be... don't worry, your skin will heal. You're a miracle, Rose."

She whimpered, and struggled harder.

"Don't worry lovely, I'll bring you back out in a few hours." he held onto her pocket watch, and swung it from side to side. "No more noise from this, not until you've earned it back, pookie."

She looked panicked. Not without her ticks or tocks... not without those...

He grabbed her chin, and pushed a bruising kiss onto her freezing cold lips. When he pulled back, she spat in his face, making him instantly backhand her.

"Oh no, look at what you've made me do..." he breathed. "Maybe you'll be in here an entire day... as long as it takes you to learn..."

He slammed the door behind him, and put a padlock on it.

Mopsy walked over to her, as the silence began to creep over her. He sat down next to her and sighed a bit, before picking up her book and beginning to read to her.

* * *

Rose could hear it all again, the voices of her life blurring. Her and her mum laughing, talking to Micks, her parallel father, her little brother Tony, her Doctor, Jack... everything blurred and mixed. Pain wracked her body as it came to. She was no longer bleeding everywhere, the wounds were healed. The golden light that was behind her eyes must have been everywhere, all over her body. There was dead silence in the room she'd been in, and she forgot to breathe. Luckily, her system didn't seem to mind that, doing the work for her. Her heartbeat seemed even quicker, she couldn't explain it, but it felt like it was a more powerful beat than normal, her pulse was racing but her body wasn't feeling the ramifications of too quick of a beat. Her eyes opened, changed from the deep brown to a shade of amber, a bit of golden light dancing behind them every once in a while. She slowly sat up, and Owen stared at her like she'd just grown another head.

She got helped up, the medic checking her vital signs and staring at her in utter shock, but she was only half paying attention. The dust on her clothing was being brushed off by Ianto, who looked at her with tears in his eyes, trying to suss out what happened. Ianto wrapped her arm around his shoulders, helping her walk in case she was too weak. She couldn't even argue, Ruby walking on her other side instantly, the conversation flowing in one ear and out the other. She only heard a few choice words... _medical unit...some fucking medic you are, Owen... alive... are you... okay, Rose? Rose? ...in shock... yeah, no shit... _As she was walked past one of the ships, caught a glimpse of her appearance in the reflection of the window. She looked the exact same... but now everything felt like she was still swimming. She needed sleep. _Regenerative coma_. Wait, what...? Why would she need one of those, she wasn't a Time Lord.

She was human, wasn't she...? But the questions that she'd asked, the way the Vortex had answered her... it began to all make sense. The reasons why she had felt depersonalized, like she wasn't even a real human being, why she'd felt on borrowed time... because she _had been_. She'd known. This had been planned. She had been planned. She'd had the Vortex pulled from her by the Doctor but it had already changed her. She would die in battle, and had died. Rose Tyler was dead. Her human part was gone. She was... that made her a Time Lord? She tried not to think about it, but there were literally millions of thoughts trying to swarm in, millions of things she was noticing about every particle of being in the room. Millions of observations all trying to hit her at once and no way to filter them. No wonder the Doctor talked so much, the alien _couldn't bloody help it_.

But she still felt the depression, even more so. Her mind felt empty and full at the same time and for some reason that was injurious to her already bruised psyche. She stared around her, worried suddenly. Her mind was silent save for her own thoughts. This was normal for a human, but for her it felt like screaming into a large cavern for others and only receiving her own echoes in return. She looked up at Mopsy, and wondered if the Doctor felt this way _all the time_. They made it out of the building and onto the concrete of the road, heading out to get her airlifted out, Ruby insisting that Owen should go with her, saying she had something important to do, something personal. Rose turned and looked at Ruby in surprise, not only at her trusting of Owen Harper to do a damn thing, but for her willingness to leave Rose after she'd been declared dead. Mopsy gave her a staredown himself, scrutinizing the way she was standing there, reassuring Rose.

"It's not that I wouldn't like to be there, but I have other obligations to see to, Rose. I can't be late for them. I'll be in to check on you soon. And Harper!"

Owen was gently fitting Rose into the stretcher, insisting she be laying down for the duration of the trip, make it easier on her. "Yeah?"

"Don't fuck it up." she snapped, walking off. Owen gave her a two finger salute, and finished buckling Rose in.

_Everything will be fine..._

Rose had felt it, she was certain. The instant her feet had touched the ground.

_The movement of the Earth_.

She could feel the world turning.

* * *

Ruby Storm walked slowly to the Time Lady mix, her curly hair bounced as she looked around in confusion. Poor little creatures, so few of them were even worth the gifts she could give, or the destruction her siblings and her could wreak. She had been male before, but had chosen this form specifically for her current job. Trying to work with Rose Tyler and deal with River Song would be difficult enough, but the veil between universes needed to be breached, and all without the bloody Doctor sticking his obnoxiously large chin into it. Seriously, could the man just have a regeneration without something coming out odd? For Time Lords supposing to be the most advanced species, the forms the last of them had in his arsenal always had a flaw. Ruby picked at her fingernail, wondering absentmindedly if it was purposeful. Big ears, big nose, big hair, big chin... that wasn't even getting into the pre- Time War. His original form had been interesting, however; especially when young. Of course his choice of companion, Koschei, had proven that the Doctor could just never quite seem to manage it, could he?

Ruby's hair wasn't in it's usual, sternly pinned back style. She kept it down, ramrod straight, trying to blend into the crowd earlier with greater ease. Now she was staring at her target, the light in the room glinting off of her sunglasses. She stared at River, who was confused. River, during her entire time in this prison, had never once received a visitor. Not even the Doctor. Of course, she'd told herself that he hadn't been able to handle the confrontation of both his guilt and her, which was mostly true; but something in the back of her mind naggled at her. The same thing that always naggled at her. _He isn't in love with you, he never was, he never will be. He's only with you to assuage his guilt and protect the time lines. _She was usually able to ignore that, but lying to herself about it always made her feel like she was insane, so she simply tried not to think about it, had allowed him to dote on her when he would, smile at her and playfully flirt back - but when she realized he did that at a constant with everyone, it'd only solidified that voice of doubt in her head. Or voice of truth.

She sat down, on her steel chair, being cuffed to it, the cuffs beeping. Laser cuffs, she'd never dare move out of them - only thing struggling did was lop off an extremity. _These maximum security guards are not fucking around..._

Ruby sat calmly, her new leggings still black, but shinier. They made a small swish noise as she crossed her legs, bouncing the one on top a bit and smirking as one did when one held all the cards. Her deep red lipstick made her teeth seem even whiter as she gave the Time Lady hybrid a sharksmile. River felt uncomfortable over it, she was able to face anything, but something about this woman told her that she was a psychopath, a real one. River knew what psychopaths looked like, what they felt like. This woman had it in for _something_, and was not going to stop until she _got it_.

"Are you going to greet your first visitor, or do I have to sit here with my thumb up my arse?" Ruby muttered brusquely, her kind and gentile nature disappearing the instant her patience ran out. _She isn't even a real Time Lady and she wastes time like the best of them_.

"Um..." Caught off guard. _Shit_. "It would be easier if I knew who was gracing my prison cell."

"You were already given my name."

"Ruby Storm is _not_ your name," River said, in that no-nonsense tone she'd somehow inherited from her mother.

"Well, say what they may about you, your powers of deduction appear to be sound." Ruby returned, offering an elegant shrug of her shoulders with her hands clasped in front of her. She shifted so her legs were crossed at the ankle, and raised an eyebrow at the other woman. "Who am I, then?"

"Isn't _that_ the question, then," River murmured.

"You'd think you'd be grateful," Ruby returned, before adding helpfully, "Not even your eccentric husband comes here to grace you with his presence."

_Ouch. Thanks for that. I needed that._

"This friendly visit from someone who isn't who they say they are have a point?" River asked in a clipped tone.

"Are you happy with how your life has turned out, River Song?"

River slammed her head back against the chair.

"It's so strange, isn't it? Married to the Doctor, never see the Doctor, not saved by the Doctor, have to save the Doctor? How unfair of a trade. He didn't save your life when it counted most, but you get to spend your entire life propelled backwards in his, saving his sorry, Gallifreyan arse every step of the way, only to be greeted with scrutiny, irritation, and a gentle rebuff of any intimate advances. Someone got the short end of the stick, didn't she?"

River began to hit her head harder against the back of the chair. Maybe if she did it in just the right way, she'd black out and not have to be present for this conversation.

"You make a terrible therapist," River snapped, giving up trying to knock herself out for the moment.

"I'm no therapist. What do you think you'll get here, in maximum security? Huggie snuggle time? You _killed_ someone, Miss Song! You don't get recess or a school counselor!" the amusement in Ruby's voice was near criminal. This woman was far too smug. But something about her felt off. Time whipped around this woman as though everything she touched was in flux. As if to prove it, Ruby stood up, outside of the visitor's chair, and began to circle River's chair. The guards got up, immediately, and began to move towards her. Ruby held up one hand, and it was as though an invisible pulse ran through the room. The guards froze in place, the air even seemed to still. The entire room felt like it was on pause, but sounds from the outside of the door told that it was still hustling and bustling in the prison. The sounds were louder, even, coming through the door.

"I've met him before, you know," Ruby stated, conversationally, not even mentioning what she'd done. She acted like it was something that occurred daily; which made River realize that it might very well be. "I had him do a favor for me... well. _We_ did. It was a difficult task, but boy did he deliver. He always does, you know, no matter what we threw at him, he came back swinging. Rebellious Time Lord... which _is_ an oxymoron, by the way."

River grit her teeth. She never wanted another visitor _again._

"Of course, he wasn't informed that it was his future to deal with the key and succeed with it. I could have told him, but that'd be cheating. I'm not like _you_," Ruby teased, standing directly in front of River now. She shook her head in amusement. "The absolute backbone of you... I admire it. I mean, the man was in mourning, for Time's Sake. Not quite the time to play 'seal our time loop by force', is it?"

"I don't know what you're _talking about_," River hissed.

"You haven't done it yet, but you _do_. The day he doesn't know you, and you die."

Oh yeah. River knew. She just hated talking about it.

"You said you met him."

"Curiosity killed the Time Lord... he's on his eleventh regeneration now, curiosity just seems to kill him on repeat."

River smiled at that, shaking her head. "He is a bit careless..." she murmured, guardedly. If she was forced to have this conversation, she would have it.

"You really do have the short end of the stick. You tried so hard to create intimacy, you tried to kiss him, and what was on his mind...? The ghost of a woman that he truly loved. I feel bad for you, Miss Song. So I've come to offer you something."

"I don't need any more enemies than I already have in here." River snapped.

"I'm not the enemy here, River Song. I'm simply here for the same reason I've always been here. The same reason the Doctor went off to play fetch for me and my... siblings... so long ago."

"What reason might that be?" Good, they were getting to the point of this.

"I fix things. I fix timelines, you see. I fix them out of necessity, to right wrongs, or for my general amusement." She gave another gallic shrug, leaning back even further into her chair, looking way too relaxed for the prison atmosphere.

"... You fix timelines?" River asked, incredulously. "...What do you want from me?!"

Ruby removed her aviators, revealing a pair of deep red irises, ones that matched her name perfectly. "Something so simple you could do it in your sleep. I need you to make a delivery of a vortex manipulator and some coordinates and a date to one Jack Harkness. I have the address right here, and a spare for your transport. All you need to do is to make certain he is there."

River was silent, digesting this. She didn't know what this woman was, but she knew that she was something important, and that since she'd gotten here had done very little but insult her, and make cavalier comments about her life. It wasn't a bad life for what it was. She had quite a few adventures with the man she loved, and even if he wasn't in love with her, he still treated her with kindness. It wasn't her fault that she was in love with him. She'd tried for a deeper intimacy with him, but the first and only time he'd kissed her, she'd brushed her mind with his. Something intimate for Time Lords, something that should have sparked his passion, and furthered theirs the way she'd always wanted. Her joke about being a screamer, the way she always tried to flirt more intensely... those all stopped at that moment. The moment she saw that he was imagining kissing _Rose_, not _her_. She'd known he was in love with Rose, the TARDIS had told her... but she'd foolishly figured it would be like dating a widow. But she couldn't compete with someone's perfect memory, and she couldn't force him to love her. But she would selfishly take what she could from him. He never pushed her for a kiss ever again, and he had never tried for anything further than that. She at least felt respected that he hadn't tried to use her body to imagine being with Rose. But this woman... this woman was a powerful stranger. River was in prison for murdering her husband. She didn't need the worst parts of her life presented to her on a silver platter while here.

"Don't worry about what he'll do when he's there... he'll take over very quickly."

"Why do you want this? Why can't you do it?!"

"I despise getting my hands dirty," she murmured, blandly.

"...Do I get to know exactly what this will cause?"

Ruby's eyes flashed at the other woman. "No," she said on a sigh, as though she was so put upon.

"What exactly is in it for me if I do this?"

The sharksmile reappeared, the one that worried River so much. "I'm going to give you what you've secretly wanted from this time loop since you figured out you were in one. I'm going to give you your most secret, dark, selfish desire you've harbored, the one that brings more and more bitterness and bile every time you allow it to the forefront of your mind and must swallow it down."

River was shaking a bit, being called on the carpet was one thing. But having yourself being forcefully splayed in front of another you didn't even know... it was nervewracking. Ruby continued to circle River's chair, looking as though she hadn't a care in the world. The guards were still frozen in time, the entire room getting more and more tense as the scarlet orbs looked her up and down as though considering. She stopped directly behind her, whispering "Your... freedom..." clicking the button that released the laser cuffs from River's skin.

River could have moved, but her vision was suddenly filled with the visions of a timeline that hadn't happened yet, but it might. She was a child, she'd been rescued from Dr. Kovarian, and she was seeing birthdays flying by, herself laughing with her parents, her mother calling out "Melody, dear, it's time for lunch!" Her father was running around, playing 'airplane' with her, and suggesting brekkie. She was watching her mother work as a model, excited to look like her when she was all grown up. She was suddenly propelled further into that life, seeing herself becoming an archaeologist, one who wasn't for all of those boring classrooms, not her; she was a lot like her Uncle Doctor, she ran in and got her hands dirty. She was a tomb raider, employed by herself, mostly - collecting her treasures, busting through ceilings, shooting strange demons that protected relics of ancient gods. She got married to a man just as crazy for adventure as she was. She got married, and he truly loved her. They had children, and she would die having lived the perfect life. The visions faded just as fast as they arrived. This was the prize, the boon she would be given for working with this woman.

"Do we have a deal, Miss Song...?"

Ruby's hand was in front of her face, waiting for River's hand to join hers.

* * *

"_You all right mate? Too much to drink?"_

_The sound of her voice ripped into him. She was everything and he'd lost her. He'd lost her to his own stupidity. He couldn't get over it, her voice was as much pleasure as it was pain - why couldn't he just do it... just cross his own timeline, take her just for a few hours. It'd only be a few, he could wipe her memories of it, it would only be a few, didn't he deserve his dying wish? Just this once?_

"_Something like that," he replied, knowing it would never be just for a few hours. He would touch her, he would go near her, and he would keep her. He would hold her to him, damn the consequences, as the reapers destroyed everything around them. His Rose would never want that. Ever. _

"_Maybe it's time you went home."_

_My home is wherever __**you**__ are, Precious Girl, you just don't __**realize**__ that... because to you I'm just a drunk in a shadowy alleyway, and your heart is too __**big**__ to ignore me or curse me like you __**should**__._

_"Yeah," he murmured, feeling his time running out. No. __**No.**__ Just a few more moments of her face, it's all he wanted, please..._

"_Anyway, Happy New Year."_

"_And you."_

_She's __**leaving!**__ No no, don't leave me, you __**promised**__, and here you are, walking away from me by __**choice**__ please don't... he was being such a child about this whole thing, but he felt entitled to it._

"_What year is this?"_

_She turned around, her golden hair fanning a bit. He could have had that. He could have run his fingers through it at any time, and he'd known that. He'd stopped himself, telling himself that it was out of line, she didn't want a broken old Time Lord, that she would die well before him... her time with him would be short. Everyone's was. Even this apparent wife he was supposed to have. She was dead before he'd even known her well enough to marry her. If he'd known, if he'd only realized how it would feel to look back on his time with her and feel this regret, he would have held her and kissed her and romanced her all along the stars so he'd at least not have the regret in his chest, making his stomach run cold with dread and self hatred._

"_Blimey, how much have you had?" she smiled so sweetly, trying to remain polite, helpful. So Rose. "2005, January the First."_

_So helpful. Come to me. If ever there was a time when I would love the powers of a Jedi, it's now. Come to me. Come to me, let me hold you. Just let me touch you. ...I sound like a dirty old man, he self reprimanded._

"_2005?" he questioned, trying to get his mind working. His past self would have her soon. He'd lost his chance, and his past self would too. Stupid. Stupid Time Lord. Stupid. "Tell you what. I bet you're gonna have a really great year." _

_She burst into that beautiful smile and his hearts swelled in his chest. _

"_Yeah?"_

_She went off, and he stood there in regret, before feeling something behind him. The wind, it was colder than it should be. It felt like a presence was behind him._

"_Such a fantastic year," a voice whispered, one that brought chill. "Too bad this one has been nothing but __**shit.**__" _

_He turned around, and saw a pale girl, barefoot, in the snow behind him. She looked like she was in white hospital scrubs, covered in some stains of what looked like dried blood and food particles. As though they hadn't been properly laundered in over a week. Her hair was beginning to twist from a lack of brushing, and it had bloodstains in it. It obscured her face, and her arm had a long gauze bandage on it. He was struck breathless by this poor girl._

"_What's happened to you? Can I help you miss?" Even dying, he instantly put an innocent in front of himself. He walked over toward her, and she removed the gauze on her arm. There were letters carved into her arm with what looked to be a small knife, or... a scalpel, his mind told him. He heard a loud slam followed by Rose's voice, calling out for Mickey, making him turn back. The instant he turned back, she was gone._

The Doctor jolted awake on the jump seat of the TARDIS, blinking a few times as he saw Amy was shaking him lightly on the arm.

"Doctor, you fell asleep. I thought Time Lords didn't need to sleep much?"

"Pond, we sleep sparingly, but my body just needed to rejuvenate itself. We've been doing a lot of late, and this body is relatively new." he adjusted his bowtie calmly, trying to think about the dream. It had felt so _real_, but he knew that it could not have happened that way. He would have been looking for that poor girl. But her arm. What had her arm said?

He racked his brain, using that photographic memory, and stopped on a dime the instant he read the words back, making Amy run into his back.

_Bad Wolf._

* * *

_**Thank you so much for reading, and again, I love my besties, especially Vampiyaa and Cheile, who helped me through this.**_

_**Please review and tell me what you think. I'll have chapter three out soon!**_

_**Natural-blues**_


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